Attorneys for the Pentagon filed a motion Wednesday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reconsider its Tuesday decision in the case, Wilkins v. Hegseth, which lifted a stay on prohibiting HIV-positive people whose infections are controlled by medication and who otherwise qualify from serving while the case continues.

In 2024, Circuit Court Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District Court of Virginia ruled that with treatment advances — and previous court rulings that allowed infected personnel to continue serving and deploy — civilians with controlled levels of the virus should be allowed to serve.

The Defense Department appealed Brinkema’s decision, and last December, the Fourth Circuit implemented a stay to new enlistments while it considered the case. In February, a three-judge panel reversed Brinkema’s ruling, but in May, the appeals court announced the case would be heard by a full panel of judges. The court clarified that the decision also lifted the stay.

The announcement was met with swift response from attorneys for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who asked that the stay be reinstated.

“Applying the injunction universally would disrupt the military’s expansive recruitment and accession operations,” wrote Charles Scarborough, an appellate attorney for the Civil Division in the Department of Justice.

“With the panel’s grant of a stay, the military resumed applying its HIV-related accession policies. Ceasing application of those policies … would impose an unnecessary and wholly improper burden on the military’s operations,” Scarborough added.

The case involves Isaiah Wilkins and two unnamed HIV-positive plaintiffs who sued the Defense Department after they sought to join or re-enlist but were prohibited based on their HIV status.

Wilkins was serving as a member of the Georgia Army National Guard who found out he was HIV-positive while trying to enlist in the Army Reserve.

The plaintiffs argued that antiviral medications kept their viral loads low or undetectable and affected U.S. service members had won similar suits and were allowed to stay in the military and deploy.

Defense Department and military services have long been concerned over transmission of HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS, from exposure to blood in a needle stick or responding to a traumatic injury.

In 2022, after Brinkema ruled that the military could not deny commissions to HIV-positive troops who sought to become officers nor could they be discharged, the Defense Department barred commanders involuntarily separating, restricting deployments or preventing commissions of affected troops.

The Defense Department stopped processing and training new recruits who were HIV-positive in January following the 4th Circuit’s decision to implement a stay.

Attorneys representing Wilkins and others said Tuesday they did not expect the stay to be lifted. They called it “great news.”

“On a regular basis, I hear from people with HIV who want to serve their country by joining the military, and that’s now again a viable option,” said Peter Perkowski in a statement issued by Minority Veterans of America, a group that has joined the plaintiffs.

The Defense Department disagreed.

“This Court should enter an order reinstituting the panel’s prior stay of the universal injunction on appeal in this case to the extent the injunction applies beyond the three individual plaintiffs in this suit,” Scarborough wrote in court documents.

From January 2020 through June 2025, the Defense Department screened roughly 7 million service members across the active, reserve and National Guard components. Of those, 1,463 were identified as HIV-positive, according to the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division.

The discoveries, announced in a late May report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, include chemical munitions — such as aerial bombs and rockets — as well as production materials and thousands of pages documenting the deadly program under ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

The findings come amid a nationwide power reshuffle as a patchwork of security players, including the U.S. and allies, struggle to secure a country devastated by years of war wrought by the government and extremist groups.

A recent Pentagon watchdog report described the transition as increasingly unstable, acknowledging that the new Syrian government forces quickly consolidated control over territory once held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, who had been allied with the U.S. military in the region’s fight against the Islamic State.

By mid-April, U.S. troops closed and withdrew from several American bases, handing over control to government forces and ending a 10-year presence in the country.

That same report warned that Syria’s new authorities would likely struggle to exercise control over the nation’s fragmented security apparatus, especially as the SDF — which has controlled and governed much of northern Syria for years — integrates into a national armed force.

Meanwhile, the chaos creates conditions ripe for militant groups like the Islamic State to once again flourish.

Against that fraught backdrop, OPCW investigators caution that the full extent of Syria’s chemical weapons enterprise may remain unknown.

The agency said information gathered since the December 2024 collapse of the Assad government indicated that more than 100 additional sites may be linked to the administration’s chemical weapons program, a stark increase beyond the 26 locations that were previously known.

The OPCW also found the same variety of aerial bombs used in chemical attacks on the towns of Ltamenah in March 2017 and Khan Shaykhun in April 2017. Earlier investigations found that jets dropped sarin and chlorine in Ltamenah and sarin in Khan Shaykhun.

In addition, investigators discovered the same type of rockets used in the 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta.

UNCERTAIN SECURITY

The new information adds a layer of uncertainty to the security tribulations already faced by Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, as he seeks regional stability after leading the armed group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to topple Assad.

Since March 2025, inspectors have visited over 20 sites across Syria, many of which were inaccessible during Assad’s administration but have since been opened as military control has shifted.

In addition to questions about where other chemical weapons may be hidden, one expert said the question of exactly who has knowledge of — and access to — where those items are located could be equally troubling.

Randa Slim, the director of the Middle East program at the Stimson Center, said the discovery of previously undeclared sites raises concerns that former Assad-era officials tied to the program may retain access to materials or information.

“There is definitely an economic benefit to them to sell these materials to non-state actors — like Hezbollah or ISIS,” she said, adding that black markets for such items exist and that ISIS had used chemical weapons in the past.

The combination of military transition, combined with incomplete information about the location of chemical weapons materials, can create a “proliferation risk” given the militant groups still operating in the region.

Though Al-Sharaa’s administration vowed to rid the country of chemical weapons, the country’s transition to a unified military has given way to other security gaps.

The Pentagon watchdog assessment said at least 150 ISIS fighters escaped detention facilities during the now-Syrian government’s offensive as SDF fighters, who were guarding the prisons, redeployed to the front lines as their territorial autonomy was threatened.

The report also described mounting disorder at camps and detention centers that contained families once involved in the terror group’s short-lived caliphate.

The U.S. transferred over 5,700 ISIS detainees to facilities in Iraq but roughly 20,000 people living in al Hol, a camp for displaced persons, which included thousands of ISIS families and partners, left the settlement without any monitoring.

Slim also said that the departure of U.S. forces from Syria earlier this year could complicate efforts to track militant activity and monitor the movement of dangerous materials.

While American troops were largely based in northern Syria, she said the military was able to provide intelligence that helped monitor ISIS and other extremist networks.

“With them out of there, that kind of situational awareness that the U.S. forces could provide — on movement of material, movement of ISIS — is no longer there,” she said.

It remains unclear, Slim cautioned, whether Syria’s transitional authorities can independently maintain that level of monitoring while simultaneously trying to consolidate control over a fractured security apparatus.

Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, died on May 31 at Erbil Air Base, Iraq, according to a Defense Department release. He was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve at the time of the incident.

Seibel, a native of Robinson, Texas, was a combat medic specialist assigned to the Air Ambulance Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade out of Fort Carson, Colorado.

He enlisted in May 2017 and previously completed a deployment to Afghanistan in 2020-21.

“Sgt. Seibel’s positive impact as an exceptional non-commissioned officer, friend and husband was felt by everyone who had the privilege of knowing him,” Col. Cameron Gallagher, commander of the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, said in a statement provided to Military Times. “He distinguished himself through an unwavering commitment to professional excellence and a relentless pursuit of growth. As a flight paramedic supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, he consistently delivered outstanding patient care and embodied the highest standards of our profession. His loss is deeply felt across the entire Ivy Eagle Brigade and his legacy of service, compassion and dedication will not be forgotten.”

Seibel’s awards include the Army Commendation Medal with Combat Device, five Army Achievement Medals, two Army Good Conduct Medals, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghan Campaign Medal, the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal, the Non-Commissioned Officers Professional Development Ribbon, the NATO Medal, the Overseas Service Ribbon, the Army Service Ribbon, the Combat Action Badge, and the Driver and Mechanic Badge.

A statement Tuesday by U.S. Army Central and Third Army noted that the incident occurred as troops were training alongside British Army partners.

A British soldier, Lance Corporal James Freeman, was also killed in the incident.

Freeman died “following a tragic accident during routine military training activity whilst deployed on Operation SHADER, Iraq,” the British Ministry of Defence posted.

He was 29 years old.

The incident is currently under investigation, a Defense Department release stated.

The Government Accountability Office looked at the Tricare Extended Care Health Option, known as ECHO, and its ECHO home health care benefit, known as EHHC. Military families may face challenges getting access to these services, which help individuals keep, learn or improve skills and functioning for daily living; provide durable medical equipment and incontinence supplies; and offer caregiver support, such as respite care.

Families with special needs may have difficulty getting access to the services they need, especially because of frequent military moves.

The coverage may be outdated, with the amounts at the same level since 2009, auditors noted in a GAO report published Monday.

Because of rising health care costs, the Defense Health Agency “lacks reasonable assurance that ECHO benefits, including EHHC services, are fully meeting the program’s purpose of mitigating the disabling effects of a qualifying condition,” auditors stated.

The coverage limit for the ECHO program has remained at $36,000 per enrollee per calendar year since 2009, when lawmakers last authorized an increase.

Auditors said that with inflation, that equates to about $24,000 in 2025 dollars.

About 27,000 eligible dependents were enrolled in ECHO in 2024, according to DoD. Most of these are children with intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities or other significant health needs.

Eligibility and other requirements and coverage vary between the service branches. Of the total ECHO population, about 1,000 were homebound with complex medically complex conditions and qualified for the ECHO home health care benefit.

But out of those 27,000 enrolled, only about 4,235, or 16%, used the ECHO services, auditors stated.

In their response to a draft report, DoD disagreed with the GAO recommendation to assess whether the coverage limit of $36,000 is enough.

They stated that in 2024, the 4,235 enrollees had an average total government expenditure of $6,600. That $36,000 coverage limit is set by law; those who require the ECHO home health care services aren’t subject to the cap. Auditors noted that a review could provide information for any potential congressional action.

Lawmakers required GAO to conduct this review of the coverage for nursing care, habilitative programs and respite care through Tricare ECHO and other federal programs.

ECHO respite care services must be provided by a Tricare-authorized home health agency, to provide a short-term break for the usual caregiver. The ECHO program allows up to 16 hours per month.

The auditors also reviewed state Medicaid home- and community-based services, such as skilled nursing care and respite care, in seven states with high military populations.

Military families may be eligible for this care, which in some cases may offer more benefits than ECHO, but access can be limited. Auditors cited a study that found in 2025, it took about 32 months to move from a waiting list to enroll in one of these state programs. Families have said that by the time they can receive the services in a state, it’s time for them to move.

DoD is in the process of standardizing its eligibility requirements, and the number of respite care hours offered across all the military service branches through the Exceptional Family Member Program. DoD officials told GAO auditors that they expect to fully implement standardization of the respite care services by October 2027, and those with profound need would be eligible for up to 32 hours of respite care per month.

Of all the services GAO auditors reviewed, respite care was the most frequently requested from 2022 through 2024, according to data from one of the Tricare managed care contractors.

But about 68% of the authorizations for services weren’t used by the families. Defense Health Agency officials told auditors shortages of respite care providers may contribute to unused services. The shortage can also delay or limit access to nursing care services for military families.

Low respite care hours and low reimbursement offered by ECHO may also contribute to challenges in getting providers, according to the GAO report.

Two ECHO case managers told auditors that even if the respite hours increased to 32 hours per month, it would still be hard to find providers, since respite care providers want more hours than that.

If lawmakers decided to move forward with the development of a U.S. Cyber Force, there would be challenges to its implementation because current responsibilities are shared between the various services and U.S. Cyber Command, per the Wednesday report written by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“Many observers contend that the challenge of generating military capability and capacity necessary to deter, compete, fight and win in the cyber domain can be directly attributed to the lack of a single organization responsible and accountable for force generation in cyberspace — or organizing, training and equipping the military forces operating in this domain,” the report states.

Lawmakers have contemplated the necessity of a Cyber Force for over a decade since the 2010 establishment of U.S. Cyber Command, or CYBERCOM, one of the Department of Defense’s 11 unified combatant commands.

Current efforts to create a standalone Cyber Force are spearheaded by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, as an amendment to the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

The report showcases how CYBERCOM is expected to perform the functions of both a combatant command and a military service, but a proposed Cyber Force would take over most of its “service-like” responsibilities, and thus organizing, training and equipping forces for the cyber domain.

The think tanks examined ways Congress and the Defense Department could stand up and implement a Cyber Force as a new military service with a cyber-specific mission that centers around assisting forces in conducting offensive and defense cyberspace operations.

The initial budget for standing up a Cyber Force is an estimated $10 billion to $11 billion, the report says, although that budget is already currently allocated into other services and cyber capabilities.

In the fiscal 2027 defense budget request, the Pentagon distributed $7.7 billion to cyberspace operations, according to budget documents, with $4.1 billion designated to CYBERCOM and the remaining $4.6 billion set aside for other defense organizations, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The budget request also emphasized the need for $20.5 billion for cyberspace activities and $12.1 billion for cybersecurity.

At least 20,000 active-duty personnel, 3,500 to 5,000 National Guard members and a civilian workforce of 6,000 would be needed to staff a Cyber Force if established, the report reads, highlighting that the commission envisions the force as a relatively small military organization.

“By grouping personnel into broad occupational categories within which they can specialize or generalize, the Cyber Force will preserve distinct competencies, support future changes in how cyber missions are conducted and create a professional identity strong enough to anchor training, career development and long-term readiness,” the report says.

Instead of following the precedent of other military branches, the commission recommended that a Cyber Force follows in the footsteps of the U.S. Public Health Service by employing commissioned and warrant officers for uniformed personnel without an “enlisted cadre.”

The think tanks weighed two options for institutional alignment: placing the Cyber Force within the Department of the Army, like the Space Force is attached to the Department of the Air Force, or making the Cyber Force its own military department.

If included in the Army, the force could have increased speed and efficiency since it would belong to an already existing DoD bureaucracy, but it could be then considered a lower priority.

By having its own military department, the Cyber Force could ensure prioritization of cyber issues within the Pentagon, but standing up a new DoD bureaucracy would require substantial time and resources.

Regardless of organizational structure, it would take between 12 to 18 months to reach initial operating capacity, the report states.

The panel’s personnel subcommittee has proposed limiting the DoD’s plans to restructure the military health system and called for reversing any changes the department has made to 41 military treatment facilities.

The subcommittee’s draft of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization bill also would improve congressional oversight of military medical reforms by requiring the Defense Health Agency to give quarterly updates to Congress of its plans to change the system.

The proposals stem from a massive overhaul of the military health system reforms initiated under the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which called for transferring military hospital and clinic management to the Defense Health Agency and reducing administrative redundancies across the system.

The legislation ultimately aimed to focus the military health system on training military medical personnel for combat operations and caring for active-duty troops, and placing non-military patients in private sector care covered by the DoD.

As a result of the reforms, DHA and the military services planned to restructure the entire hospital system, announcing in 2020 that it would improve two military medical centers and consolidate or downsize 48 facilities, including 38 that would no longer see military families or retirees as patients.

At the time, Thomas McCaffery, who served as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs in the first Trump administration, said the changes were necessary to prepare military physicians and troops for deployment.

“We reviewed all facilities through the lens of their contributions to military readiness — that includes MTFs [being] operated to ensure service members are medically ready to train and deploy,” McCaffery said in a 2020 report to Congress.

But those reforms bled patients from military heath facilities, resulting in inadequate numbers for military physicians to maintain their skills. In turn, services degraded across many military hospitals and clinics, according to senior enlisted personnel.

In late 2024, the Defense Department reversed course on the plan to shed patients to private care, vowing to bring back 7% of patients by the end of 2026. It also has announced several partnerships with community health facilities to ensure that military physicians get adequate trauma training and patient exposure to maintain their skills.

But the DoD has failed to provide information to Congress regarding the reforms, frustrating members with its lack of candor regarding any planned closures of facilities.

Concerns voiced by lawmakers over changes to facilities that weren’t made public, such as Keller Army Community Hospital, West Point, New York, which was to lose its inpatient beds and Fort Leonard Wood’s new hospital. That hospital was to open not as a full-service hospital as planned, but an ambulatory clinic, which prompted several legislative changes, including the proposed fiscal 2027 NDAA restrictions.

Under the draft NDAA, DHA would not be allowed to make changes proposed for 41 facilities and must “reverse any steps to carry out a service change” and “restore personnel and clinical services affected by any such service change to a level that existed as of March 3, 2026.”

According to the proposed legislation, three facilities faced downsizing from hospitals to ambulatory care facilities, meaning they would have no inpatient capabilities. Those included:

• Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia;
• 88th Medical Group, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, (including closing pediatric cardiology and discontinuing chiropractic care); and
• Naval Hospital Beaufort, South Carolina, including discontinuing chiropractic care.

Those that would limit access to active-duty service members only included:

• 78th Medical Group, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia;
• 72nd Medical Group, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma;
• 75th Medical Group, Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and
• 66th Medical Squadron, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts.

Those that would have excluded caring for retirees and their dependents, only seeing active-duty personnel and their family members were:

• 22nd Medical Group, McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas;
• 341st Medical Group, Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana;
• 28th Medical Group, Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota;
• 92nd Medical Group, Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington;
• 90th Medical Group, Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming;
• 355th Medical Group, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona;
• 9th Medical Group, Beale Air Force Base, California;
• 45th Medical Group, Patrick Space Force Base, Florida;
• 4th Medical Group, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina;
• 460th Medical Group, Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado;
• 27th Special Operations Medical Group, Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico;
• 412th Medical Group, Edwards Air Force Base, California;
• 30th Medical Group, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California;
• Naval Health Clinic Corpus Christi, Texas;
• 19th Medical Group, Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, (which also plans to discontinue nutrition services); and
• 20th Medical Group, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, (which also plans to discontinue nutrition services).

Facilities planning to restrict services only to active duty members and dependents who live on base included:

• 23rd Medical Group, Moody Air Force Base, Georgia;
• 366th Medical Group, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho
• 319th Medical Group, Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota; and
• 61st Medical Squadron, Los Angeles Space Force Base, California.

Three facilities were slated to discontinue contracts for chiropractic and nutrition services, including:

• 55th Medical Group, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska;
• 2nd Medical Group, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; and
• 87th Medical Group, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.

In addition, the following facilities would discontinue contracts for chiropractic services:

• 1st Special Operations Medical Group, Hurlburt Field, Florida;
• 10th Medical Group, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado; and
• 96th Medical Group, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Seven facilities would have seen changes in services, to include:

• David Grant Medical Center, Travis Air Force Base, California, slated to lose its labor and delivery department;
• 42nd Medical Group, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, which would stop its educational and developmental intervention services;
• Vilseck Army Health Clinic, Germany, which would discontinue its physical medicine and rehabilitation services;
• Naval Health Clinic Patuxent River, Branch Health Clinic Dahlgren, Virginia, which would no longer offer radiology;
• Army Health Clinic Munson, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which would stop offering mammography;
• Naval Health Clinic Lemoore, California, which would lose its operating rooms;  and
• 7th Medical Group, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, which would stop offering nutrition services.

And according to the proposed legislation, one facility — the Desert Sage Community Based Medical Home, part of William Beaumont Army Medical Center, at Fort Bliss, Texas — was slated for closure.

In October, then-acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Stephen Ferrara said review of the military health system was an ongoing process and no plans for reductions or closures were set in stone.

“Like any enterprise, we’re always looking at ‘Where are we there — where do we have supply and demand mismatches?’ That’s just good governance of the system,” Ferrara said in response to a question from a reporter at a Military Officers Association of America conference.

“If you looked at any corporation that had 100 hospitals or 100 stores, they should be looking at them to say where it makes sense to dedicate their resources. That’s kind of what we’re doing, just as a matter of course, so there’s not, like, a list,” Ferrara said.

Karen Ruedisueli, MOAA’s director of government relations for health, said Tuesday that the organization, which represents active-duty and retired military personnel and family members, continues to press pressed Congress and the Defense Department to conduct “rigorous data-based analysis and mitigation planning” before shifting patients from military facilities to civilian care.

Ruedisueli first reported on the facilities list in the proposed legislation Tuesday.

“MOAA will keep members informed as this legislation moves forward and work to ensure any changes to the MHS prioritize the needs of those who have served,” Ruedisueli wrote in a blog post.

The House Armed Services Committee plans its mark up of the fiscal 2027 NDAA Thursday. It then will be forwarded to the full chamber for consideration. The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to mark up its version next week but has not released a draft.

The “Global Terrorism Threat Assessment 2026″ identifies terrorism on the continent as “the greatest uncertainty,” citing the rising capabilities of al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliates.

“Unlike the Middle East’s terrorist organizations, most African terrorist groups are unquestionably ascendant,” the authors wrote, pointing to larger fighting forces, greater financial resources, and the groups’ ability to move through wide swaths of territory.

Many are also capitalizing on the proliferation of unmanned aerial systems and artificial intelligence to enhance their deadly effectiveness.

“These new capabilities unlock new forms of operation, facilitation, and inspiration for international terrorists, requiring novel responses from states, which may also take advantage of emerging technologies,” the report said. “Given the increasing pace of technological change, the future of how terrorists and counterterrorists will act against each other is increasingly unclear.”

The report classifies Al Shabaab, a Somalia-based al-Qaida-affiliated group, as Africa’s most capable – and likely largest – terrorist organization, with the clearest demonstrated intent to attack American interests. But the authors stop short of declaring that this group represents an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland.

“Al Shabaab seems focused on its regional objectives, meaning the probability that an African terrorist group attempts a mass-casualty attack against the U.S. homeland remains low,” the authors wrote.

Meanwhile, ACLED, a nonprofit organization that collects conflict data, recorded that nearly 80% of all ISIS activity during the first 11 months of 2025 occurred in Africa, marking a 50% increase from the previous year.

At the heart of that surge is the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, a powerful insurgent network in the Sahel that poses the most significant challenge to Al Shabaab’s dominance on the continent and increasingly serves as a hub for intelligence gathering and logistical coordination among Islamic State branches in the region.

“ISWAP has also recently benefited from external support in the form of trainers deployed by the international Islamic State organization to increase ISWAP capabilities in UAS operations, advanced explosive assembly, and military tactics,” the authors wrote.

The Trump administration has recently focused its African counterterrorism strategy on those two theaters: Somalia, where U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, has ramped up air and drone strikes, and Nigeria, where Washington has launched a series of airstrikes alongside local partners and deployed a small contingent of U.S. personnel to support training efforts.

Yet these developments come as the United States has reduced its military footprint in Africa by 75%.

Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the head of AFRICOM, told lawmakers in May that the departure of American and allied forces had created “an intelligence black hole” on the continent. Anderson also emphasized that his command was operating with the “minimum necessary resources” and that its diminished force posture was compromising its ability to respond to crises.

Service members attending the event must also meet certain physical standards, according to an internal document reviewed and authenticated by Military Times.

In the document, the Pentagon called on commanders to find volunteers to attend the June 14 matches, which are being held in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary — and President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

The administration set aside about 1,200 tickets for active-duty troops, said Dana white, CEO of the UFC. Celebrities and personal invitees of the Trump administration and UFC leadership will also attend.

The televised event will take place on the South Lawn, where a caged octagon with a towering patriotic arch was erected for the occasion.

The military described it as a “high visibility” event and provided a list of requirements for those selected to attend.

Service members must meet a waist-to-height ratio of 0.55 or less, the document states. Troops must also meet their service-specific physical fitness standards to attend.

The Pentagon introduced the waist-to-height ratio earlier this year as a means to evaluate the body fat of troops.

The ratio, which is calculated by dividing someone’s waist circumference by their height, replaced traditional height-and-weight tables as the primary measure of physical standards.

The U.S. Marine Corps imposed a more strict measure, ordering their personnel to meet a waist-to-height ratio of 0.52 or less.

A man’s average height in the U.S. is around 5 feet, 7 inches tall with a waist circumference of 40.6 inches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. That equates to a waist-to-height ratio of 0.59. The average height for a woman is approximately 5 feet, 2 inches tall with a waist of 38.5 inches, making the waist-to-height ratio 0.61.

Service members selected for the UFC matches should also be “genuine UFC fans,” the document says. Commands were encouraged to select junior enlisted service members and junior officers.

The Pentagon also asked that commands select service members outside the national capital region. However, the document noted that the military would not cover the cost of their travel.

Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, told Military Times last week that the endeavor “will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary.”

American Justin Gaethje and Spanish-Georgian champion Ilia Topuria are slated to headline the card in a lightweight title fight, while Brazil’s Alex Pereira and France’s Ciryl Gane will square off for the heavyweight crown.

Military Times reporters Cristina Stassis and Tanya Noury contributed to this report.

The United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, part of the House’s edition of the National Defense Authorization Act released last week, would “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation,” according to the bill.

The measure was introduced by Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. It calls for the defense secretary to designate an executive agent to synchronize cooperate efforts between the two countries.

Congress has a decades-long tradition of strong bipartisan support for Israel, and following Hamas’ deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the United States sent $13.4 billion in military aid to the country.

U.S. and Israeli defense companies also cooperate on weapons development and manufacturing, including collaboration between U.S.-based RTX and Israel’s Rafael Systems on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

The directive for further technological integration between the U.S. and Israeli militaries comes as the two countries pursue a war on Iran, which is proving to be unpopular, according to nationwide polls.

Ben Freeman, the director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, wrote in Responsible Statecraft that the NDAA provision would greatly expand the existing cooperation between the U.S. and Israel by promoting joint research and development on cyber defense, machine learning, unmanned systems, data integration and more.

Reps. Ro Khanna of, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have both spoken out against the effort. The two lawmakers united last year to introduce the Iran War Powers Resolution.

Massie, who recently lost his Republican primary to a challenger closely aligned with President Donald Trump — and his administration’s position on Israel — said in a message on social media, “If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor.”

Massie appeared concerned that such a level of integration would infringe on U.S. sovereignty.

Khanna, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, backed Massie on social media, posting that he would introduce an amendment to strip the measure out of the final House version of the NDAA.

Rogers defended the measure Tuesday, posting on social media that it “simply adds transparency and improves efficiency by designating a single official to coordinate existing initiatives.”

“In no way does it give away command and control of our military operations, personnel, or equipment,” he said.

The House Armed Services Committee is set to debate the measure as part of its markup of the NDAA on Thursday morning. The bill is then expected to go to the full House for a vote.

In a new solicitation, SOCOM is asking for a new M4 upper receiver capable of firing “emerging hyper velocity ammunition” modeled after the 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge.

SOCOM said the Hypervelocity Improved Carbine, or HICAR, program will “leverage the performance benefits of current and future experimental hypervelocity rounds” and called it “vital to addressing future capability gaps on the battlefield.”

When fired out of a standard-issued M4, the military cartridge known as M855A1 has “a recognized effective range of approximately 300 meters,” but SOCOM wants the new upper designed to fire hypervelocity ammunition known as M855A1+.

“This weapon system will allow an operator to effectively engage targets at extended distances while maintaining the portability and ergonomics of a lightweight carbine,” the solicitation says, adding the desired effective range is “600 meters and beyond.”

“The goal is to integrate advancements in material science and weapon design to provide operators with a technically superior individual weapon system,” SOCOM adds.

In the solicitation, SOCOM says M855A1+ is loaded to 82,000 pounds per square inch. That measurement refers to the amount of pressure generated to push the bullet out of the casing. While more pressure results in greater velocity, it can also damage a firearm not designed to handle it.

Last month, SOCOM said it will begin fielding the MK24 Medium Range Gas Gun Assault rifle, which is part of a family of squad weapons chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor and .338 Norma Magnum, before the end of this fiscal year.

Also, both the Army and Marine Corps have been shifting away from the M4 with the adoption of the Next Generation Squad Weapons and M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, respectively.

For the HICAR program, white paper submissions are due June 8 and SOCOM will host pitch meetings Sept. 15 and 16.

During testing, the M4 uppers will fire 600 rounds of primarily M855A1+ and some M855A1.

The researchers described the deployment as “an expensive tool” used in “the wrong places for the wrong types of crime.” They cited the $607 average daily cost per Guard member in the nation’s capital, compared with $384 in pay for Metropolitan Police Department officers.

“The National Guard was deployed primarily in high-visibility public spaces, exactly the locations where opportunistic property crime tends to occur and where visible deterrence is most likely to be effective,” they wrote. “A uniformed presence in tourist corridors and transit hubs is unlikely to interrupt a dispute between individuals with preexisting ties on their own turf. The Guard’s footprint was simply misaligned with the geography of violence.”

Robbery and other violent crimes in Washington, D.C., have also seen a downward trend that predates the deployment, the report said, and the operation did not impact that trajectory.

But the policy think tank emphasized that the effort was “not a waste.” It acknowledged there was a 24% decline in opportunistic property crime recorded in the first six months of the operation.

“What the Guard brought was a massive, sudden shock from the visible presence of uniformed military personnel on the streets of Washington almost overnight,” they continued. “It produced a significant reduction in property crime, and it did so quickly, which matters when residents and businesses are demanding visible action.”

The authors went on to argue that a more targeted, data-driven MPD mobilization could have achieved “comparable or better outcomes” at a fraction of the expense for taxpayers.

The White House, in response, dismissed what it called an “out-of-touch” think tank analysis, written by “keyboard warriors” seeking to undermine President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“Here’s the reality: President Trump has transformed D.C. from a crime-ridden city into a safe and beautiful haven for residents and visitors alike,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Military Times. “The president’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force and National Guard presence have driven down crime, beautified the city and improved quality of life for countless individuals,”

Trump, for his part, said last week there were no plans for the National Guard to leave the nation’s capital anytime soon. The administration is requesting an additional 1,500 Guard troops ahead of America’s 250th birthday events in the district.

The U.S. military is pushing to demonstrate high-energy laser weapons engineered for fielding at scale in the next two years, according to the U.S. Defense Department’s top science and technology official.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee on May 19, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)) Emil Michael told lawmakers that the science of laser weapons “is largely done.”

The Pentagon, he added, is now focused on addressing the engineering challenges that come with transforming exquisite prototypes into mass-producible capabilities — the “scaled” element of the department’s “scaled directed energy” critical technology area.

“We now have a suite of directed energy products that go from low-end to high-end, and now we have to scale production of those,” Michael said.

When questioned by Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) about the three-year timeline for fielding laser weapons at scale that defense officials previously publicized in March, Michael stated that President Donald Trump’s planned "Golden Dome for America" domestic missile shield would accelerate those research and development efforts due to the initiative’s “big reliance” on directed energy, adding that “our experience in Iran has also doubled our interest in these systems.”

“A lot of the money allocated to Golden Dome is going to go to the fundamental engineering of these systems so that we can make them cheaper, smaller and more proliferated,” Michael said. “And because the commitment was made to the president that we’re going to have a demonstration that includes directed energy in our Golden Dome architecture, there’s a lot of energy going into that.”

The directed energy demonstration is expected to occur during the summer of 2028, Michael said, part of a series of planned Golden Dome-related events.

“There’s never been more effort in the department on this particular capability,” Michael said. “There [are] several companies that are emerging that have developed it, and several companies that are taking what they’ve already built and making it cheaper and better.”

Michael comments effectively tie the future of U.S. military laser weapons to a presidential priority with serious money and a hard deadline behind it.

The Pentagon’s fiscal year 2027 budget request contains $452 million in proposed R&D spending for the “development, integration, and assessment” of directed energy weapons in support of Golden Dome alone, more than triple the $142 million enacted under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” reconciliation package Trump signed into law in July 2025.

In addition, the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy together have laid out plans to spend $675.93 million over the next five years on a containerized 150-300 kW Joint Laser Weapon System (JLWS) as part of the military’s broader Golden Dome architecture.

Michael’s mention of Iran as having “doubled” the Pentagon’s interest in directed energy, meanwhile, adds an operational urgency that budget numbers alone don’t capture.

But there’s a problem with Michael’s declaration that the science of laser weapons is “largely done” and the engineering is what remains: engineering is exactly what has sunk U.S. military programs in the past.

Building effective laser weapons means ensuring they can be operated and maintained across a range of tactical environments by soldiers who aren’t laser specialists.

Consider the Army’s 50 kW Stryker-mounted Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD), which the service determined was “not mature enough” to become a program of record after rocky operational testing in the Middle East in 2024 exposed issues with the system’s heat dissipation and reliability in its vehicle-mounted configuration.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch summed up the problem with real-world directed energy weapon deployments in August 2025.

“We can’t get by with the thought of having clean rooms out in combat,” he said.

The Pentagon has been burning drones out of the sky with lasers since 1973, but it has yet to consistently translate demonstrators into battle-ready weapons that American service members can actually rely on outside of a controlled environment.

Indeed, the last decade has proven a graveyard of promising laser weapon programs.

Beyond DE M-SHORAD, the Army has also abandoned its 300 kW Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) project after downshifting from an eventual program of record to a single testbed that will inform future JLWS efforts.

The Navy’s 60 kW High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system, which only recently began testing at full power and successfully engaged drone targets aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Preble after years of delays, has effectively disappeared from the service’s fiscal year 2027 budget request outside a handful of sustainment dollars.

The Marine Corps returned its five much-hyped Compact Laser Weapon System (CLaWS) units to Boeing without a replacement program in sight.

The Air Force spent years testing Raytheon’s High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) before abandoning it without a program of record.

These failures share a common pattern diagnosed in a detailed 2023 Government Accountability Office report: promising laser weapons advanced through prototyping without ever securing formal transition partners or drafting agreements that would bind developers and the acquisition community to shared requirements, timelines and funding responsibilities, dooming them to obsolescence simply because the bureaucratic will to fight for them across budget cycles and shifting service priorities didn’t exist.

In his posture statement to the House Armed Services Committee in April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it “institutional inertia.”

While Michael pointed to the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF) counter-drone group as a demand signal aggregator alongside and Golden Dome as a political forcing function, neither of those things solves the transition problem on its own.

Two efforts — likely Michael’s “suite of directed energy products that go from low-end to high-end” — will serve as the clearest early indicators as to whether the Pentagon’s current engineering confidence is warranted.

The first is the Enduring High Energy Laser (E-HEL), the Army’s modular 30 kW system explicitly envisioned as the service’s first directed energy program of record — and it appears to be moving faster than almost any laser effort before it.

Based on Army documents, E-HEL’s design philosophy looks like a direct response to DE M-SHORAD’s shortcomings, with the system decoupled from a specific vehicle platform and built for soldier-performable sustainment using line-replaceable units.

The service plans to “produce and rapidly field” 24 E-HEL systems over a five-year period, with the first prototype expected no later than the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 and initial procurement units slated for delivery by the end of fiscal year 2027.

If this timeline holds, E-HEL would mark the first time the U.S. military service has successfully transitioned a laser weapon to a genuine program of record.

The second is the aforementioned JLWS. The Navy plans on awarding $31.7 million in contracts for the development of a Joint Beam Control System (JBCS) — a critical component “capable of supporting” a 300-500 kW laser weapon system, according to the Navy’s fiscal year 2027 budget request — as soon as the fourth quarter of 2026, with another $30 million in contracts for the procurement and testing of containerized hardware expected by March 2027.

That timeline makes a Golden Dome demonstration in the summer of 2028 plausible, but it also means whatever system appears will likely be an early-stage weapon rather than a mature one. The current JLWS R&D roadmap runs through fiscal year 2031, and while a successful demonstration in two years would be a genuine milestone, it would still represent the early stages of a fielding process.

Whether the U.S. defense industrial base is ready to answer either program’s call remains an open question.

Manufacturing expansions from defense contractors like Huntington Ingalls Industries, AV, IPG Photonics and nLight are encouraging signs, but the industrial building blocks for laser weapons — from specialized optics with 12- to 18-month lead times to critical materials and rare earth elements sourced from Chinese-dominated supply chains — do not yet appear in place to enable the production systems at the scale Michael is describing.

The development of laser weapons has been defined for decades by a seemingly inescapable cycle of enthusiasm and disappointment.

Retired Air Force Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, former program manager for the service’s legendary YAL-1 Airborne Laser effort, perfectly captured the longstanding Pentagon consensus around directed energy in an interview for the 2018 book Lasers, Death Rays, and the Long, Strange Quest for the Ultimate Weapon.

“I’m tough on laser people these days,” Pawlikowski said. “It’s because they have a reputation of overpromising and underdelivering.”

With institutional support at a historic high, the Golden Dome-driven demonstration planned for summer 2028 may end up proving a moment of truth for the engineering challenges that have imperiled laser weapon programs past — or, at worst, yet another setback for the U.S. military’s long pursuit of directed energy.

“They still have a lot of drones because these are easy to make,” Rubio said as he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the first time since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28. “This is a pervasive problem around the world.”

The Islamic Republic’s Shahed-136 drones have become emblematic of a new era in warfare defined by cheap, mass production. Costing between $20,000 and $50,000 apiece, the roughly 11-foot-long, delta-winged munition carries an explosive warhead that detonates on impact.

Rubio nonetheless insisted that the U.S. had been “highly successful” in achieving its military objectives in Iran, contending that the campaign had significantly degraded the country’s Navy, industrial base and its ability to manufacture missiles.

“There is no Iranian Navy. It lies at the bottom of the ocean, and will soon, within a number of years, be prime fishing spots because they’ll turn into reefs,” he quipped.

The nominal ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, however, remains tenuous.

U.S. Central Command announced on Sunday that it conducted “self-defense strikes” against Iranian radar and drone control sites over the weekend. Iran, meanwhile, declared it targeted U.S. forces at an airbase in Kuwait. American officials said the attack was thwarted and no personnel were harmed.

Rubio, a central player in the negotiations to end the war, stressed the intricacy of the process, given the heavy reliance on intermediaries. The discussions are “not like talks with Switzerland,” he noted wryly. Still, he pointed to signs of progress, citing the regime’s alleged willingness to begin bargaining over facets of its nuclear program.

He said the latest framework for review is built around a two-pronged model, beginning with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Under that phase, he said, Iran would forgo tolls, assist in removing mines it had laid, and commit to not firing on ships — preconditions he described in aggregate as “the predicate that opens the door to phase two.”

The second phase would require Iran to enter “very specific negotiations” on the means of disposal of highly enriched uranium that is “buried deep in the mountain.” The secretary of state added that the regime would also have to accept “severe and long-term limitations and/or cancellation, of enrichment.”

Rubio talked up the overall outlook for a deal, but diplomatic channels have fallen quiet in recent days, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies. The outlets report that Tehran has suspended communication with mediators in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order of an incursion deep into Lebanon to target Hezbollah, effectively unraveling the truce between the countries.

President Donald Trump disputed the claim of severed communications in a Truth Social post on Tuesday. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he asserted.

The crisis in Lebanon represents a significant hurdle on the path to a U.S.-Iran peace deal. Netanyahu appears adamant about prolonging Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbor — and preserving the right to strike inside its borders. But the Iranians are equally insistent that any enduring cessation of hostilities must encompass Lebanon.

“The ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is unequivocally a ceasefire on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Monday. “Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts.”

Sgt. Albert Haynes II, 24, was in Florida to attend a poolee function with U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Station-Jacksonville at the time of the incident, a Marine Corps spokesperson told Military Times.

The incident is currently under investigation by the Bradford County Sheriff’s Department. The Marine Corps will be cooperating throughout the process, the service stated.

Haynes, a native of Austin, Pennsylvania, was assigned to Lima Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion at the time of his death, according to his service record.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps as an 0811 Field Artillery Cannoneer, attending the Field Artillery Basic Course in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, after graduating recruit training and Marine Combat Training.

His awards include the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (with a gold star in lieu of a second award), the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (with two bronze stars in lieu of a third award) and the National Defense Service Medal.

Prior immigration violations meant his mother’s case did not qualify for the immigration benefit he believed military service could provide.

He decided not to enlist.

Whether cases like Dela Torre’s are isolated — or occur often enough to influence military recruitment — is something the Pentagon does not publicly track.

Military Times asked the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness whether the department documents immigration-related concerns during the recruitment process. The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Immigrants and noncitizens have long served in the military, with Blue Star Families reporting one in 10 service members belongs to a recently immigrated family.

Recruiters, attorneys and military-family advocates say immigration questions continue to arise in conversations about military service, but recent searches revealed no publicly available DoD assessments addressing whether such concerns influence recruitment.

Speaking on background because they were not authorized to discuss recruiting conversations publicly, military talent acquisition specialists in Texas said they run into situations involving prospective recruits from immigrant families several times a week.

Those conversations often include questions about citizenship opportunities, undocumented relatives and whether military service can help family members navigate the immigration system.

Dela Torre said he met with a recruiter at one such Texas office while exploring military service. Immigration-related opportunities for family members, he said, were a primary reason for his interest.

The recruiter explained that military service could provide an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship for eligible recruits and described military service as a faster route to naturalization than the standard process available to many lawful permanent residents.

The conversation reinforced Dela Torre’s initial belief that military service could help address immigration-related challenges his family was facing.

“Recruiters are pitching immigration benefits as an enlistment incentive,” Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and Army Reserve officer who has worked extensively on military immigration issues, told Military Times.

Stock said she receives one or two inquiries nearly every day from prospective recruits, service members and military families seeking guidance on immigration matters connected to service.

One recent inquiry she received was from a young U.S. citizen who contacted Stock after being told military service could help his family obtain legal status.

After reviewing the family’s circumstances, Stock said she explained that military service would not resolve their particular immigration issues. The prospective recruit, much like Dela Torre, later told her he was no longer interested in joining.

“This is a very typical case,” Stock said.

Noncitizen service member issues affect a military population that includes tens of thousands of immigrants and recently immigrated families.

According to FWD.us estimates, there are roughly 45,000 immigrants currently serving in uniform and an estimated 5,000 noncitizens enlisting each year.

Military legal assistance offices have historically faced significant demand for immigration-related support, with recent immigration enforcement actions involving military spouses adding renewed urgency.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Military Assistance Program was created to help service members and military families navigate such matters.

According to AILA, the program received more than 800 requests for pro bono immigration assistance in 2022 alone. The inquires provide one of the few publicly available indicators of military family requests for immigration assistance.

Recruiters, attorneys and military family advocates interviewed by Military Times have questioned whether immigration cases involving military households could influence how families view military service, family stability or long-term military careers.

For Dela Torre, the answers to some of those questions ultimately altered his decision to enlist.

Whether similar decisions are occurring elsewhere — and whether DoD has developed any way of tracking them — remains unclear.

Crandall, while recognized for his heroism, will be best remembered for the “warmth of his wit, the depth of his humility and the fierce loyalty he gave to the people and communities he loved,” according to a Congressional Medal of Honor Society release.

Born in February 1933, Olympia, Washington, the All-American athlete had dreams of being drafted by the New York Yankees and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington. That dream was deferred, however, when Crandall was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1953.

Crandall would subsequently receive the nation’s highest honor for valor during the Nov. 14, 1965, Battle of Ia Drang — the first major clash of the Vietnam War, made famous by the book We Were Soldiers Once … and Young: Ia Drang–The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam and the subsequent movie of the same name.

On that day, Crandall led 16 helicopters carrying soldiers into Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, but as the fighting intensified, orders came down for follow-on aircraft to abort their mission, meaning all medevac assistance had been cut off to the men of the 1/7 Cav.

“The medevac pilots were all great pilots, but they weren’t allowed to land on a landing zone until it was ‘green’ for a period of five minutes,” meaning it wasn’t being relentlessly attacked, Crandall later recalled.

Crandall recognized that the men he had shuttled into Ia Drang were trapped, in desperate need of ammunition and, for some, medical evacuation.

Contacted on the radio by Col. Ramon Antonio “Tony” Nadal, Crandall recalled that Nadal was yelling, “I got to have — get my wounded out of here. I’ve got 12 guys that are — and they’re collected, and I have a hole where a helicopter can get in, but they won’t come.”

In response, Crandall refueled, kicked off his door gunner and weaponry to lighten his load.

“If you have infantry on the ground, you can’t shoot up their backside,” Crandall said, calling the M60 guns “worthless.”

Ignoring the heavy enemy fire, Crandall, alongside his friend Maj. Ed Freeman, voluntarily flew 22 missions into the valley to deliver ammunition and evacuate some 70 wounded soldiers.

“While medical evacuation was not his mission,” reads his Medal of Honor citation, “he immediately sought volunteers and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, led the two aircraft to Landing Zone X-Ray. Despite the fact that the landing zone was still under relentless enemy fire, Major Crandall landed and proceeded to supervise the loading of seriously wounded soldiers aboard the aircraft.

“Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated,” the citation continues. “This greatly enhanced morale and the will to fight at a critical time.”

Crandall would ultimately fly nearly 1,000 combat missions and was further commended for rescuing 12 wounded soldiers during a dense jungle operation in January 1966, according to the Department of Defense.

In 1968, four months into his second tour in Vietnam flying Huey gunships in support of the 1st Cavalry Division, Crandall’s helicopter crashed, breaking the pilot’s back among other severe injuries that left him hospitalized for five months.

The broken back didn’t deter Crandall from flying, but a subsequent stroke in the early 1970s ended his flying career. He retired from the Army in 1977.

Crandall, who initially received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Ia Drang, was awarded the Medal of Honor on Feb. 26, 2007, by President George W. Bush.

With Crandall’s passing there are now only 63 living Medal of Honor recipients.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling said the 2025 policy was unlawfully motivated “by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group.”

But the Pentagon has broad powers to set enlistment standards, the court said, and can continue to ban transgender people from newly entering the military pending the outcome of a lawsuit by transgender current and would-be service members.

“It appears to us to be a much greater hardship to end a military career than to delay the start of one,” wrote Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama.

Circuit Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, in a dissenting opinion said courts “have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks.”

Jennifer Levi of LGBTQ rights group GLAD Law, who represents the plaintiffs, applauded the decision.

“This decisive ruling confirms that the Trump Administration has no legitimate basis to discharge transgender service members who have met every demanding standard and proven, time and again, their fitness and dedication to serve,” Levi said in a statement.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ruling partially upholds a 2025 decision by a Washington, D.C.-based federal judge who had blocked the entire policy from being implemented pending further litigation. The judge said the policy amounted to sex discrimination and likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Trump in a January 2025 executive order said that adopting a transgender identity “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth implemented Trump’s order soon after, prompting legal challenges.

The ban on military service is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to eradicate the recognition and accommodation of transgender people throughout American life.

Federal agencies have dropped lawsuits filed on behalf of transgender workers, ended settlements that benefited transgender students and launched investigations into hospitals and doctors for providing gender-affirming treatment to minors.

The military has about 1.3 million active-duty personnel, according to Department of Defense data. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.

The U.S. Supreme Court in May 2025 allowed the policy to be implemented, lifting a judge’s ruling in a separate case out of the state of Washington that had temporarily blocked the ban.

But the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning and may have been ruling on a technicality rather than the merits of the case, Wilkins wrote for the D.C. Circuit on Monday.

In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, should “stop playing games with America’s Security.”

Trump added an ominous warning that if anything were to happen, the judge “will be responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our Country.”

“He has already created enough problems by allowing ‘Top Secret’ information to be released and exposed based on a ridiculous lawsuit started by a highly litigious woman,” Trump noted.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit in December to block the $400 million project, arguing that it cannot proceed until it receives congressional authorization. Leon agreed at the end of March, but that decision was later paused by a federal appeals court, allowing work to resume in the interim pending further review.

The president invoked national security as a justification for forging ahead. His Sunday post featured two AI-generated renderings of military-style drones stationed on the rooftop and flanked by snipers.

“The DronePort at the White House Ballroom will be, perhaps, the most sophisticated anywhere in the World! It will safeguard our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C., long into the future,” Trump said. “With the advent of highly sophisticated, and powerful, modern day weaponry, we can no longer defend Washington, D.C., with rifles and pistols, alone.”

Trump hosted reporters for a tour of the site of the former East Wing in May, where he cast the development as both a ballroom and a fortress. Among the features he highlighted were a military hospital, missile-proof roofing and a “drone port” designed to accommodate an “unlimited number of drones.”

“This is all my money and donors’ money. This is tax free,” Trump asserted. “On top of the roof, we’re going to have the greatest drone empire that you’ve ever seen and it’s going to protect Washington.”

It remains unclear how or why drones would be deployed in this way. The specifics of security at the White House are not widely discussed but it has been reported that the building already has measures in place to combat potential drone attacks.

Security in general is a significant concern, however. Over the past month, there have been three separate incidents in which gunfire erupted in close proximity to the president.

On May 23, a gunman approached the White House while Trump was inside the residence, drew a firearm and discharged multiple rounds before being fatally shot by Secret Service agents. On May 4, a man was wounded during a firefight with Secret Service personnel near the Washington Monument. On April 25, an individual carrying a shotgun, handgun and knives attempted to breach a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — an event attended by the president — before being swiftly apprehended by law enforcement and charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

The Justice Department is hoping the security imperatives will shape the trajectory of the legal dispute. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, in a court filing, insists it is “urgent” that the ballroom be completed.

“This second attack on the President this month underscores that critical need for top level, state of the art security at the White House, including the Ballroom,” Blanche wrote in May, acknowledging that it is being constructed to “ensure that that President can perform his constitutional duties in a safe and heavily secured facility.”

The solicitation, issued in late May on behalf of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Somalia, or JSOTF-SOM, calls for three cultural and political advisors to communicate with the country’s government and tribes and also to provide translation.

“This effort will allow JSOTF-SOM to successfully conduct its mission with an understanding of local customs, history, cultural routines, tribal dynamics, local government, and the socio-cultural context in which operations are being planned and conducted,” the notices states.

The notice comes as U.S. Africa Command has seen a 75% force draw down over the past 10 years. When paired with other nations’ reductions, the cuts have created what Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the command’s head, described in testimony before Congress as, “an intelligence black hole.”

Anderson said the force cuts hindered intelligence gathering across the region, and he warned that terrorist groups like ISIS still wanted to strike the U.S.

President Donald Trump, in mid-May, said he ordered a strike that killed the second-highest-ranking ISIS member, Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, in Lake Chad Basin, an area that sits in the Sahel region in the upper half of the continent — far from Somalia, but rife with extremism.

Somalia is a hotspot for Islamic militant groups, including ISIS and al Shabab, an insurgent group related to al-Qaeda, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Despite the reductions in the region, the U.S. has continued to pummel Somalia with airstrikes at a pace rivaling the year before. In 2025, the command carried out 124 strikes against the militant organizations, up from just 10 in 2024.

The new contractors would be located primarily in Mogadishu, the country’s capital, and must have a Top Secret clearance, according to the notice. They would also be required to travel to different locations inside Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya, and work in “austere locations,” sometimes at personal risk. The new role would begin in September.

SOCOM spokesman Navy Cmdr. Joe Vermette told Task & Purpose the MRGG-A will completely replace the MK17 SCAR. He added that SOCOM is “pursuing a rapid fielding method” to “multiple (Special Operational Force) components.”

Last August, SOCOM awarded the Iowa-based LMT Defense a 10-year contract to the tune of $92 million for the MRGG-A. At SOCOM’s request, the rifle features a swappable barrel, allowing operators to change between firing 7.62mm and 6.5mm Creedmoor cartridges.

“This thing isn’t just a gun, it’s a deployment package,” said Joe Hajny, an LMT Defense spokesman, about the multi-caliber chambering in an interview with Classic Firearms at this year’s Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show.

Hajny added that SOCOM prioritized “the quick barrel change.” He explained the logic is that when SOCOM operators are “out with the partner forces that don’t have access to 6.5, the field environment might switch, they could change the caliber if need be.”

With that, he said an operator can change the barrel in about a minute. As for the barrel itself, Hajny explained that it measures in at 14.5 inches, so the rifle feels more like an M4 carbine but operates like an M110 semi-automatic sniper rifle, which also uses the 7.62 cartridge.

The most notable change is SOCOM’s adoption of the 6.5mm Creedmoor.

SOCOM reportedly began testing the cartridge along with almost two dozen others in 2017 and found that it delivered the best overall performance at ranges 1,000 meters.

“(The MRGG-A) is a big one that I think is going to trickle down to more of your mainline units down the road,” Hajny said.

Other services have also been shifting away from legacy cartridges like 7.62 and 5.56. The Army, for example, has been transitioning to its Next Generation Squad Weapons chambered in 6.8x51mm.

In 2021, SOCOM hosted an assessment event with its partner Special Operations Forces Works, or SOFWERX, to identify small arms weapon systems capable of greater accuracy at ranges past 1,200 meters.

Along with the MRGG-A, SOCOM expressed interest in a new sniper rifle and lightweight machine gun. After years of testing, the organization contracted Geissele Automatics for the MRGG Sniper rifle in 6.5 and Sig Sauer for the LMG-Medium in .338 Norma Magnum.

In a recent interview with The War Zone, Lt. Col. Alan Wood, SOCOM’s program manager for lethality, explained that like the 6.5mm, the .338 is “more effective on target” at “greater ranges” and the system overall — the rifle and ammo — could weigh “hundreds of pounds” less than the heavy .50-caliber round. Yet, SOCOM has paused fielding on the LMG.

As for the MRGG-A, Wood said, “It’s just a phenomenal, accurate weapon system for our SOF operators. All the components are super excited about this one.”

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Francis Donovan, the head of U.S. Southern Command, briefly discussed operational security matters with the Cuban delegation, which included Cuban Gen. Roberto Legra Sotolongo, first deputy minister of the chief of the General Staff, U.S. Southern Command said on X.

“Donovan also led a perimeter security assessment of the naval base and discussed force protection, safety of service members and their families, and operational readiness with base officials,” it said.

Donovan’s meeting in Cuba is the first in recent memory by a head of Southern Command and comes amid growing concerns in Cuba of a possible U.S. military attack on the Communist-run island.

Cuba’s armed forces said on Facebook that the meeting took place with mutual agreement and that both sides agreed to maintain communication.

“Both delegations evaluate positively the meeting where issues related to security around the dividing perimeter of the military enclave were addressed and agreed to maintain communication between both military commands,” the statement said.

The meeting follows a rare visit earlier in May by CIA ​Director ⁠John Ratcliffe to Havana.

President Donald Trump has often cited Cuba among the foreign policy goals of his second term and has hinted it will become his focus once the war with Iran is over.

U.S. ANTAGONIST

Cuba has been a U.S. antagonist for decades, since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Trump is strongly supported by hardline Cuban Americans in Florida, who have pushed for U.S.-instigated regime change for decades, and his administration has been steadily ramping up pressure on the island.

On May 20, the U.S. formally charged former President Raul Castro with four counts of murder for the 1996 downing of civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based exiles.

The indictment was the latest example of the Trump administration’s efforts to assert U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Washington’s more assertive role in Latin America was epitomized by an audacious raid by the U.S. military on Jan. 3 to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, and then fly him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

Maduro, a socialist aligned with Havana, pleaded not guilty.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who is seen as a possible contender for the 2028 Republican nomination for president, has raised alarm in Havana by talking about the national security risk posed by what he calls a failed state just 90 miles (145 km) from Florida.

On May 5, Rubio and Donovan posed in front of a map of Cuba in a post on X by Donovan’s Southern Command. It said the talks focused on “U.S. efforts to counter threats that undermine security, stability and democracy in our hemisphere.”

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has warned that any military action would lead to a “bloodbath” in which thousands of Cubans and Americans would die.

Trump has effectively imposed a fuel blockade on the island by threatening tariffs on countries supplying it with fuel, igniting seemingly endless power outages and delivering new blows to the island’s already ailing economy.

Experts say instability in Cuba threatens a migration crisis.

Roughly 78,000 civilian positions were eliminated in 2025 — about 10% of a workforce that originally exceeded 793,000. At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth characterized the cuts as part of a broader effort to “streamline the Federal workforce and to make the Federal Government more efficient and responsive.”

“Effective immediately and for the duration of this freeze, no vacant civilian position may be filled, and no new civilian positions may be created, unless approved by me,” he wrote in a Feb. 28, 2025 memo.

The Friday report from the GAO — sometimes referred to as Congress’s watchdog — noted that under law, Hegseth “may not reduce the civilian workforce programmed full-time equivalent levels without conducting an appropriate analysis of the impacts.”

It concluded that the department did not have a plan in place to review the impact of the workforce reductions, with the report adding that “without assessing lessons learned, DoD may miss opportunities to better understand reduction impacts, inform strategic human capital management, and mitigate any challenges in future efforts.”

In a statement to Military Times, a Pentagon official said that the department “acknowledges GAO’s recommendations and are actively evaluating the findings.”

The new report amounts to the latest bump in a rocky relationship between the Trump administration and the GAO, however.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought said last September that the agency “shouldn’t exist,” telling a conservative conference it was a “quasi-legislative independent entity.” In March, Vought issued a memo to department and agency heads stating that the GAO’s views are “not binding,” while contending that excessive deference to them had “failed...to adequately protect American taxpayer dollars.”

But Sarah Kaczmarek, a spokesperson for the GAO, told Military Times that Congress has long-relied on the office “​for fact-based analysis of federal spending and compliance with the law.”

“For folks we’ve heard from, threats began a few weeks after the U.S. strikes against Iran began,” said Sarah Streyder, the wife of a Space Force guardian stationed overseas.

People have received threats through email, social media and text messages, and they appear to be coming from individuals connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Streyder said.

But in some cases, she said, members of the IRGC have showed up at hotels in a nearby Gulf country, inquiring about U.S. service members who are temporarily staying there.

“As a result, those service members have had to keep relocating to different hotels for safety,” she said.

The threats have included identifying details about the service members, spouses and children, such as their names, current temporary locations, current home addresses and current schools, said Streyder, who is also executive director of the Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that seeks to mobilize those in the military community to be voters and advocates.

Neither U.S. Central Command nor the Department of Defense immediately responded to questions about these threats.

In April, U.S. Navy officials sent a Navy-wide notice providing detailed information to sailors about how to secure their electronic devices and personal information. The notice advised sailors to report suspicious messages to their unit’s agency’s information technology department.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have released information from CENTCOM that confirmed for the first time that hostile foreign adversaries are using commercial location data to target American troops in an active war zone.

CENTCOM confirmed that the command has received “multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater” for Operation Epic Fury, according to a May 28 announcement from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C.

CENTCOM provided the information in an April response to questions from Wyden.

“DOD officials have reportedly known about the threat that commercial data brokers pose to national security for at least a decade,” said Wyden and Harrigan, in a May 28 letter to Kirsten A. Davies, DOD’s chief information officer. The letter was signed by a bipartisan group of 12 other members of the Senate and House.

The lawmakers urged DOD to adopt safeguards, such as disabling smartphone advertising IDs and replacing web browsers that are designed to facilitate online tracking and data collection.

Lawmakers noted that earlier in May, CENTCOM gained the capability to disable location sharing on smartphones it manages. CENTCOM officials told senators in its response that the advertising ID is still not disabled on DOD-issued smartphones, but that DOD is testing a capability to do so.

Meanwhile, the threats that appear to be coming from IRGC are happening to families in at least three branches — the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, Streyder said.

“Some of these threats seem based broadly on troops who are or have been stationed in theater,” she said, and some “seem hyper personal based on a troop’s suspected connection to specific operations.

“This certainly isn’t the first time U.S. service members and their families have received threats from foreign adversaries,” she continued. “And certainly, military families are reminded often about the importance of helping maintain [personal security] and [operations security] in order to minimize risks both to operations and to personnel.

“That said — it’s not a common occurrence for many of us — and many facing it right now are facing it for the first time. It’s scary and it’s silencing.”

Individuals who discussed the threats with Streyder declined to speak to Military Times, citing safety reasons and concerns about retaliation.

The fear that these threats instill in the families receiving them “has a huge impact on how openly families feel like they can share what’s going on in their lives,” Streyder said.

“We want our fellow Americans to understand the breadth and depth of risks military families face as part of their commitment to service. These are the costs we incur any time our country goes to war.”

The unprecedented June 14 bout on the South Lawn of the White House will feature an octagonal cage, a towering patriotic arch that looms well above the presidential residence, a performance by the United States Marine Band and seating for more than 4,000 spectators. Weigh-ins are scheduled to take place at the Lincoln Memorial.

Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, told Military Times on Friday that the endeavor “will be one of the greatest and most historic sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary.”

American Justin Gaethje and Spanish-Georgian champion Ilia Topuria are slated to headline the card in a lightweight title fight, while Brazil’s Alex Pereira and France’s Ciryl Gane will square off for the heavyweight crown.

Roughly 1,200 tickets are reserved for active members of the military, according to Dana White, the CEO of the UFC.

The remainder will be distributed among celebrities and a roster of invitees selected by the Trump administration, UFC leadership and TKO Group Holdings.

An additional 85,000 people, who must provide identification and pre-register, will be able to watch for free on screens installed at the Ellipse, a public park just south of the White House.

White, who says he has sworn off politics since endorsing Trump in 2024, insists the occasion is rooted in patriotism, not partisanship. He added that the UFC will lose approximately $30 million hosting the event.

“I love this country like anybody on the left loves this country. I love this country like anybody on the right loves this country,” he said in an interview with TIME Magazine. “This is basically me spending a ­sh-t­load of money to celebrate the 250th birthday of America, with America and the rest of the world.”

In addition to the full card of mixed-martial arts, Trump has a slew of commemorations lined up to mark the semiquincentennial year of the Declaration of Independence, including a “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall and a “Freedom 250” Grand Prix through Washington, D.C.

Cao stated that Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia will be part of a pilot program exploring the concept of an installation “powered from an aircraft carrier.”

“We’re going to export the energy from the aircraft carrier to the base,” he said. The American Nuclear Society first reported the Navy’s initiative.

In a statement confirming the plan, a Navy spokesperson told Military Times that the service “is executing a multi-pronged strategy to ensure the delivery of firm, baseload power to our installations for energy resilience and mission assurance.”

“One line of effort in the strategy is to deliver power from a Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to a compatible shore installation, to demonstrate the capability to meet emergent, mission critical needs,” the spokesperson added. “An initial test of this capability is being planned for later this year at Naval Station Norfolk.”

While neither Cao nor the Navy confirmed the hulking vessel tapped for the assignment, the guinea pig in question is likely the USS Gerald R. Ford, the only Ford-class carrier currently in active service. The sea service’s second Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, completed sea trials earlier this year.

The Ford recently returned from a historic 322-day deployment, during which time the ship and its strike group participated in Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East and operations Southern Spear and Absolute Resolve in U.S. Southern Command.

During the May 14 hearing, Cao noted that the possibilities generated by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier could be innovative — with its power being used to fix military bases or to supply fresh, potable water to drought-stricken places like California.

In the same hearing, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle noted that the aim is to create a Navy reactor pilot program comparable to that of the already established Army and Air Force programs.

“We need an overall programmatic champion for the SMR program,” Caudle said. Adding that the Navy needed to stop “dithering.”

“While the Army may be tapped to be the overall lead for it, I see no world in which the Navy is not going to be part of that discussion and bring our expertise through our long-established naval reactors, deep understanding of reactor physics, and understanding safe operation,” he said. “But we need to get a pilot established and a target date and get one going.”