A third U.S. service member is missing, the command release added, while four more troops had to be medically evacuated to hospitals in Jordan.

Those four service members have since been discharged, the command added.

“Other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have returned to duty,” the release stated.

U.S. Central Command is withholding the identities of the dead until 24 hours after the service members’ next of kin have been notified.

Additional information about the exact location of the attack had not been provided as of publication.

The casualties in Friday’s attack bring the toll of American troops killed in the war with Iran to 16.

Most recently, the commanding officer of the Navy’s Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5, Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards, was killed on July 1 when the MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter he was aboard went down in the Arabian Sea. Three other sailors were rescued following the emergency landing.

More than 400 U.S. troops have been wounded in the campaign, which began Feb. 28.

Ladarrion McCray, 23, and Emma Bradshaw, 22, face eight charges, including felony murder by child abuse, making false statements and aggravated animal cruelty, according to a July 15 announcement.

Prosecutors allege the couple “willfully deprived their son of necessary sustenance” for roughly two weeks in January. The child, identified in court documents as “L.M.,” died on Jan. 28 as a result of the alleged neglect.

According to investigators, McCray had recently been transferred to Fort Benning, and Bradshaw joined him a short time later while pregnant with the child.

Court records do not specify the child’s age or when the family moved into on-base housing.

Army investigators executed a search warrant at the home the day the child died and found two dogs — a male hound and a female Doberman — that “appeared severely malnourished.”

Both animals were taken to a shelter, where veterinarians determined they suffered from “severe malnourishment and significant muscle wasting.”

During interviews with investigators, McCray and Bradshaw said their son had shown no signs of illness before his death. They also said they had buried a third dog, a dachshund that died from an illness, at a park off base.

Investigators instead found the dachshund discarded in a trash can behind the home. A necropsy determined the dog died of starvation.

Court records show both defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges on June 11. They were released on bond and placed under pretrial supervision.

McCray, who is currently the subject of discharge proceedings by the Army, was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation. Once separated from the service, he is to report to his parents’ home in Georgia. Bradshaw was authorized to reside at a women’s shelter in Alabama.

Neither defendant is permitted to possess pets while awaiting trial, although McCray’s release conditions were modified because his parents own dogs.

Their next court appearance is scheduled for July 22 in federal court in Columbus, Georgia. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison.

For the first time in decades, student pilots are flying solo across the country, the Army announced Thursday, as part of a curriculum change the schoolhouse hopes will create more skilled pilots.

The new aviators will prepare for the endeavor with two weeks of cross-country instruction before completing a check ride. Then, with naught but their fresh hands at the controls, the students will fly 50 to 100 nautical miles from Shell Army Heliport, navigating the national airspace without an instructor.

Second Lt. Kyler Suerth, one of the first flight school trainees in the new program, was anxious. “We are actually operating in civilian airspace the way aviators do,” the West Point graduate said before his flight in the release. “I am nervous, but every day I get a little less nerve wracked and a little more excited.”

Though he said that radio calls — and the challenge of shifting from military to civilian language — was his biggest hurdle, Suerth completed his solo flight this week.

The new model was introduced by the 1st Battalion, 223rd Aviation Regiment. Lt. Col. Andrew Bartlett, the unit’s commander, said the flight was a chance for students to combine the individual tasks they learned at the schoolhouse.

“We are asking them to think, to decide and to fly like real aviators,” said Bartlett, who supervised the program’s launch.

Flight school students will take at least two solo flights and up to five cross-country flights, depending on the weather, the Army said. Then, they move into tactical terrain flight training without the aid of GPS.

The solo flight is among the latest changes to the Army aviation pipeline as the service began an overhaul last year following a series of fatal accidents and concerns that new pilots were not developing essential flying skills.

Severe aviation accidents rose approximately 55% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, according to Pentagon data released in 2025.

The Army also moved towards contractor-run training as it advanced at least two bidders for its rotary-wing program revamp in April.

A Pentagon official said Thursday that the Defense Department has “welcomed back more than 230 warfighters,” and the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force continue to work with more than 600 service members who have expressed interest.

The official did not provide a breakdown of the returnees by service.

According to the Defense Department’s web site on COVID-19 reinstatement, more than 8,700 service members were involuntarily separated for refusing the immunization after they were ordered in 2021 to get the vaccine.

Data compiled by the services in December 2022 — days before the mandate was lifted by law — showed the figure was closer to 8,400 and included 3,717 Marines, 2,041 Navy sailors, 1,841 Army soldiers and 834 Air Force and Space Force members.

Eligible service members have been allowed to rejoin the service since 2023. In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing them to come back with “full back pay and benefits.”

Under Pentagon policy, those eligible receive back pay, allowances and any bonuses they would have earned had they stayed in the military, minus income, VA benefits and separation payments they received in the interim.

Hegseth ordered the services in December to review all the discharge cases to determine whether members were entitled for upgrades of their discharge characterizations from General (Under Honorable Conditions) to Honorable.

In March, the department extended the deadline to those interested in rejoining the service by a year, until April 1, 2027, and it cut the active-duty return to service obligation from four years to two.

“Maybe, for some, four years felt like too much given what had been done to them. We hope two entices warriors of conscience to come back,” Hegseth said in a video posted on the social media platform X.

The Defense Department announced Wednesday that it planned to convene a panel to study the decision to require the COVID-19 vaccine and will declassify and release materials related to the mandate.

The National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies management and organization, is conducting an after-action review at the request of the Pentagon, with a report expected by the end of the year.

No surveys have been conducted of the personnel who were involuntarily separated regarding why they have not returned to service. Officials told the Associated Press last year that many troops “have moved on with their lives.”

The vessel is assigned to the 260th Special Purpose Brigade, which was created in response to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2025 to address a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C.

The order called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to establish a specialized unit within the D.C. National Guard dedicated to “ensuring public safety and order” and strengthening coordination between military forces and civilian security agencies responsible for protecting the nation’s capital.

The new vessel expands that mission into the city’s waterways.

“Homeland defense is a team sport. We’re the connective tissue between military response and the agencies that secure the capital every day,” Army Col. Larry Doane, commander of the 260th Special Purpose Brigade, said in a release.

The vessel was acquired through a partnership with the U.S. Navy and is the first maritime security vessel operated by an Army unit in Washington, D.C.

With protected airspace, federal buildings, overlapping jurisdictions and two major waterways, Washington presents an uncommon security environment. The vessel will support waterborne security operations during major events in the city, such as Fourth of July celebrations.

“When symbols of freedom are center stage, like on the Fourth of July, some bad actors might see a target. In such cases, we pivot on a dime and defend the capital,” Doane said. “But even more important than the pivot is the deterrence of presence, high-level training and equipment that prevents the attack in the first place.”

The vessel also supports the brigade’s ongoing modernization of the 547th Transportation Company, which has expanded its fleet to improve mobility through large crowds, urban terrain and restricted areas during security operations.

The brigade plans to add four more vessels and is working with the Navy to select platforms that can operate with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s fleet during security missions.

Army Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard II, the D.C. National Guard’s interim commander, said the new capability builds on the organization’s long history of adapting to evolving threats.

“For 224 years, the District of Columbia National Guard has answered our nation’s call by evolving to meet the challenges of every generation,” Blanchard said in a statement. “This new maritime capability is more than a vessel — it is an investment in the partnerships, readiness and modern capabilities that enable us to better support the local, state and federal agencies that protect our nation’s capital every day.”

The event was held July 11-14 at Camp Blanding Joint Training Center in Florida.

Brown and Fouts earned the honors after four days of competition against 12 other top soldiers and noncommissioned officers representing 14 states. The competitors completed more than 25 events testing marksmanship, land navigation, tactical decision making and physical endurance while competing in Florida’s grueling heat.

The two will represent the Army National Guard at the Department of the Army Best Squad Competition, scheduled for Sept. 11-19 at Fort Benning, Georgia.

They will be joined by Sgt. 1st Class Erich Friedlein of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, Spc. Caleb Chambers of the Indiana Army National Guard and Spc. Caden Leonard of the Utah Army National Guard, who finished among the top competitors.

The five-soldier team will compete against 10 active-duty squads and one U.S. Army Reserve squad while also fighting for Department of the Army Soldier of the Year and Noncommissioned Officer of the Year honors.

“This is literally the best 14 soldiers in the Army National Guard right now,” U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Lonny Posey, the competition’s lead organizer, said in a release. “They were out here giving their all, and we’re happy to be able to work for them.”

Brown said advancing to the Army-level competition is a chance to demonstrate the service’s ultimate mission.

“I want to be an example and a reminder of the true purpose of the warfighting profession — to fight and win the nation’s wars,” Brown said.

Fouts said he welcomed the test and hoped to lead by example.

“I’m always up for a challenge,” he said in the release. “I want to set an example for the soldiers under me.”

During the closing ceremony, organizers also announced that all 14 competitors had earned the German Armed Forces Proficiency Badge and the Schützenschnur — a marksmanship badge — after German military officials evaluated certain events throughout the competition without informing participants beforehand.

She left behind a teaching career she loved in San Antonio, Texas. Since arriving in California, Pasco has spent months navigating state credentialing requirements including additional coursework, English learner authorization and California-specific licensing before she can return to the classroom.

“The fastest way to get ghosted after a job interview is by telling them you’re a military spouse,” Pasco said. “They’ll say, ‘You’ve lived in a lot of places,’ and then comes the awkward, ‘Yeah ... I’m a military spouse.’ That’s why I’ve had jobs in different states. After that, I usually don’t hear from them again.”

Repeated rejection has taken a toll.

“I had a full breakdown today because it’s never been this hard,” she said. “I have three degrees and more than 10 years of experience, and people look at me like I have nothing to offer.”

Pasco isn’t alone. Military spouse employment has become a recurring concern for military leaders, lawmakers and military family organizations, which have increasingly linked spouse employment to family financial stability, quality of life and retention.

In efforts to address the issue, Congress has advanced bipartisan legislation, the Defense Department has expanded employment programs and nonprofit organizations and private employers have invested heavily in helping military spouses enter the workforce.

Even so, the Military Family Advisory Network’s 2025 Military Family 360 Report, released in June, found unemployment among active-duty spouses actively seeking work climbed to 29.9% in 2025, up from 21.8% in 2023.

A decade of attention

Congress has spent more than a decade trying to reduce the employment barriers military spouses face.

Lawmakers expanded federal hiring preferences, supported interstate occupational licensing reforms and backed Defense Department programs intended to ease employment transitions after permanent change-of-station moves.

More recently, bipartisan lawmakers introduced the Military Spouse Hiring Act, which would add military spouses to the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit and offer employers a tax incentive to hire them.

The legislation has not become law, but Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said his office is now pursuing the proposal through broader legislation to reauthorize and expand the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

“The problem of military spouse unemployment and underemployment is a difficult one to easily solve,” Beyer told Military Times.

Frequent relocations, assignments to rural or economically depressed communities, deployments and unpredictable military schedules continue to disrupt careers in ways most civilian families never experience, he said.

Beyer said Congress has made progress, pointing to expanded hiring preferences and growing employer engagement, while acknowledging that legislation alone has not consistently translated into better outcomes.

“A consistent challenge has been in the implementation of various well-meaning federal initiatives,” he said.

Federal hiring preferences have created opportunities, Beyer said, but lengthy hiring timelines, limited awareness of available programs and complicated eligibility requirements often reduce their impact for military spouses who may relocate again within a few years.

“We can and should do better in holding ourselves accountable in measuring progress and changing course if a specific program is falling short,” he said.

Barriers remain

MFAN’s 2025 Military Family 360 Report found unemployment among active-duty spouses actively seeking work increased sharply over the past two years, while 55.9% reported being underemployed, meaning they earned less than they needed, worked fewer hours than they wanted or held positions below their education or level of experience.

Shannon Razsadin, chief executive officer of the Military Family Advisory Network said, “What’s remained consistent is the structural nature of the challenge itself.”

Blue Star Families reached a similar conclusion through a three-year longitudinal study conducted with Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Despite being a highly educated population, only 22% of participating military spouses maintained full-time employment throughout the study, even though 43% held advanced degrees.

Researchers found that repeated PCS moves, child care challenges, occupational licensing requirements and the demands of military life continued to interrupt careers long after spouses entered the workforce.

“One of the biggest misunderstandings is that military spouse employment is primarily a job-search problem,” said Lindsay Knight, chief impact officer at Blue Star Families. “It is more accurately a career-continuity problem.”

The organization’s research also found that military spouses often accepted positions below their qualifications because those jobs offered greater flexibility or were easier to leave when military orders arrived. Child care repeatedly emerged as a deciding factor in whether spouses accepted promotions, reduced their hours or left the workforce altogether.

Beyond getting hired

As senior vice president of programs and events at Hiring Our Heroes, Elizabeth O’Brien has spent more than a decade helping military spouses connect with employers. During that time, she has watched opportunities expand in ways that were difficult to imagine when she entered the field.

“If there has been a time to be a military spouse that wants to enter the workforce, there’s better opportunity now than there has ever been,” she said.

Remote work has expanded. Employer partnerships have grown. Programs such as the Department of Defense’s SpouseWorks program (formerly SECO), have broadened access to fellowships and career services.

Still, O’Brien cautioned against expecting legislation alone to solve the problem.

“I don’t know that Congress can legislate everything that needs to happen,” she said.

Military spouses often navigate challenges that extend well beyond the hiring process. Frequent moves interrupt professional networks. Occupational licensing requirements differ from state to state. Child care availability can determine whether a spouse is able to accept or keep a job. Even resume screening systems can struggle to interpret employment histories shaped by repeated relocations.

O’Brien agreed with researchers who argue that maintaining a career has become as important as finding the next job.

“I agree with the goal of career continuity,” she said. “But we have to start at the very beginning before we can get there”

O’Brien believes employers also have an opportunity to think differently about retention. Rather than measuring success solely by whether a military spouse remains with one company, O’Brien said industries should work together to retain talent across employers when military families relocate.

A financial professional who moves from one institution to another after a PCS, for example, has continued building a career even if the employer changes.

“If the industry is working together,” she said, “the military spouse has a better opportunity for career continuity.”

The stakes extend beyond professional fulfillment. Blue Star Families found 77% of military families now rely on two incomes to meet their financial needs, up from 63% in 2019.

Interrupted careers can delay promotions, reduce earning potential and make it more difficult for families to regain financial footing after each move.

For Pasco, those realities are measured one application at a time.

Every PCS has meant rebuilding professional relationships, learning another state’s requirements and explaining why her resume spans multiple duty stations instead of a single community.

“I’m not asking for special treatment,” she said. “I just want someone to look at my experience and see what I can actually do.”

Two months before Pete Hegseth appeared in front of Congress to testify in his confirmation to be secretary of defense, he sat across from the podcaster Shawn Ryan, talking about the Pentagon’s 2015 decision to open ground combat roles to women.

“It hasn’t made us more effective. It hasn’t made us more lethal,” Hegseth said. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

By the time of Hegseth’s appearance on the show in late 2024, women had been serving in combat positions for nearly a decade across the military. The decision to integrate women had been thoroughly studied — before, during, and after the process — and thousands of women had served in roles ranging from infantry to combat engineers to special operations. The debate over women in combat was largely considered to be over.

But Hegseth was looking to reignite that debate. His book, “The War on Warriors,” which he was on the show to promote, dedicated a full chapter to the idea.

“Dads take us to push risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes,” he wrote in the book. “We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”

Hegseth softened his rhetoric during his January 2025 confirmation hearing, telling senators that women service members deserved the opportunity to serve in any role they qualified for.

“Women in our military, as I’ve said publicly, have and continue to make amazing contributions across all aspects of our battlefield,” he said.

Yet barely two months into his tenure at the Pentagon, Hegseth was already laying the groundwork to call into question those contributions. In March, he created a task force to review standards. Then, in December, the Pentagon’s personnel chief, Anthony Tata, announced a “review of the operational effectiveness” of ground combat units in the Army and Marine Corps, according to an internal memo obtained by The War Horse.

Now, that study is raising fears among military researchers and advocates for service women.

“We’re all concerned that this study is going to be used as a pretext to remove women from combat arms,” said Sue Fulton, the executive director of the Women in the Service Coalition, which advocates for women in the military.

Advocates have reason to worry: The researcher leading the current study on the issue, Jane Pinelis, helped lead a controversial review for the Marine Corps in 2015 that found mixed-gender units did not perform as well as all-male units. In his book, Hegseth drew heavily on that study to support the argument that women should not serve in combat arms.

“It was a flawed design from the get-go,” retired Army Col. Ellen Haring told NPR in 2015.

Defense officials initially assigned the current study to the Institute for Defense Analyses in December—only to change course and move the study to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where Pinelis works, in April.

The highly unusual decision raises questions about the study’s independence, according to advocates and defense analysts.

“Why was this removed from IDA, where this kind of research is in their wheelhouse, and given to [the Applied Physics Lab], where this is clearly outside their expertise?” Fulton asked.

‘What is the problem we’re trying to solve?’

At his confirmation hearings, Hegseth told lawmakers that his concerns were not about women in combat, but rather, that standards had fallen to facilitate the integration of women in those units.

This February, after the Pentagon began its review, Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, asked the senior enlisted leaders from each military branch to testify on whether standards had been lowered. All of them said no.

“I’ve seen no data that supports that there’s been any lowering of standards or that there’s lowering of the readiness of units with those females in those units,” Navy Master Chief David Isom, a SEAL serving as the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified.

Women who have served in combat roles agree.

“It becomes abundantly apparent very quickly if you are contributing to the team or detracting from the team when you have to move 40 ammo cans from point A to point B,” a female officer who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment told the military news website Task & Purpose earlier this year.

Even before combat units were integrated, women guarded convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan, accompanied special operations soldiers on missions, and frequently came under enemy fire.

“Women were already serving in combat,” said Rita Graham, the policy director at Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group for women in the military. The decision to open all combat roles to women came in part because four women service members, along with SWAN, sued the military for sex discrimination.

“They were being denied the recognition, the training, the medals, leadership opportunities, but most importantly, the career advancement,” Graham said.

Yet almost since he assumed office, Hegseth has been searching for evidence that standards have slipped.

Early on, Hegseth convened a team of advisors to evaluate standards at the Army’s Ranger School and special operations training programs. Hegseth served in Iraq with the team’s leader, Eric Geressy, who retired from the Army as a sergeant major. In “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth notes that Geressy was critical of women moving into frontline positions, which he called “chicken shit.”

The team quickly moved to lay the groundwork for a new study of women in combat, beginning with visits to Ranger School in March 2025 to “review and restore” standards, according to documents reviewed by The War Horse. Tata announced the study internally nine months later.

“Service members want a challenge[,] they do not want to be part of a loosing [sic] team and want to serve alongside the best,” a briefing document from the team’s visit to Ranger School said.

Laura Junor Pulzone, who served as the Pentagon’s principal deputy undersecretary for personnel and readiness as the military prepared for full gender integration in 2014, questioned whether a new study was even necessary.

“I was the readiness person,” said Junor Pulzone. “The only thing that mattered to me was making sure that we had a predictably ready force that was capable of executing the national defense strategy, full stop.”

“What I saw was an analytically based, sound way of doing this,” she said, noting that she would have raised red flags if she felt the military had not fully studied and prepared for the transition to gender-integrated combat units.

Gender-neutral standards for jobs open to men and women in the military were first required more than 30 years ago, as the military began training women to fly fighter jets. The same requirement held true for combat roles as they opened to women, and there is scant evidence that standards for those positions have declined in the past decade.

“This study has already been done,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., an Air Force veteran, told The War Horse. “We know that women who serve continue to perform and meet the same standards in ground combat as their male colleagues.”

Since 2015, thousands of women have served in Army ground combat units, and hundreds more have served in similar Marine units. Multiple women have completed Army Special Forces training and the Air Force’s special warfare training pipeline. More than 180 women have graduated from the Army’s Ranger School, one of the military’s most demanding combat leadership courses. And a recent Army study found that women who completed the course showed fewer signs of physiological stress at the end of training than men.

Researchers who spoke with The War Horse said a new study makes sense if at least some anecdotal evidence found problems in mixed-gender combat units. But that has not been the case, they said.

“What is the evidence of the problem?” Junor Pulzone said. “What is the problem we’re trying to solve?”

Researchers also told The War Horse the timeframe of the study — initially six months, though extended to a year when it was transferred to Johns Hopkins — was unusually compressed.

“If I were to set up doing a study like this, it would be a large mixed-methods [study]. There would be a lot of data from the past. There’d also be a lot of conversations that would have to happen—interviews, focus groups, which are going to require some pretty significant institutional review board proposals, as well as data-sharing agreements,” said another researcher who has studied women in the military extensively and who declined to be named over potential career impacts.

“It’s a very short time for a study like this.”

A controversial study

On its website, the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins lists 39 areas of expertise, ranging from “space technology” to “tactical and ballistic missile defense systems” to “cyber-physical security.” It does not list anything related to military readiness, personnel, or ground combat.

That has raised suspicions among military researchers, who told The War Horse they were surprised the Pentagon moved the study from the Institute for Defense Analyses to Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory. It’s unusual for the Pentagon to change the institution conducting a study, particularly in the middle of it, they said.

“Shopping around for researchers is not a good look,” Junor Pulzone said.

And the choice of the Applied Physics Laboratory struck researchers as especially unusual.

“They have robotics people, AI people, chemists. I don’t understand why they have [the study]. I really don’t. It doesn’t make any sense,” said one researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity over fears of potential career impacts.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to answer The War Horse’s questions on the record. But in a response provided on background, a Pentagon official said that after the study was assigned to the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Defense Department “recognized the need to incorporate combat-relevant field tests” into the assessment.

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory “has the capability to examine existing personnel and operational data, as well as conduct the field tests,” the official said.

The Applied Physics Laboratory did not respond to requests for comment.

“The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory is a world-renowned research institution focused on artificial intelligence, robotics, and emerging scientific discoveries — no doubt vital and urgent work,” Houlahan said. “However, the Applied Physics Lab is not the first place that comes to mind when examining the role of women in ground combat.”

On Pinelis’ LinkedIn profile, the study’s lead researcher describes her current role as chief AI engineer at the Applied Physics Lab. She also lists work as the chief scientist for special operations. Years before, in 2015, as a statistician, she led the design and analysis of the Marine Corps study into gender-integrated units.

That study concluded that all-male units outperformed mixed-gender units on 69% of tasks. At its conclusion, the Marine Corps requested an exemption from the Pentagon’s directive to open all combat roles to women.

“This was a very politically unpopular conclusion,” Pinelis told an interviewer from Forbes in 2022. “There’s no room for compromise when it comes to scientific rigor.”

Pinelis did not respond to a request for comment from The War Horse.

The methodology behind the 2015 study drew sharp critiques. Critics pointed out that the units drew experienced male Marines, while female Marine volunteers had just gone through the Marine Corps’ initial nine-week infantry training course and only had to meet the minimum male physical fitness score to participate. It also evaluated women based on average scores, rather than assessing how capable individual female Marines were of meeting a standard.

“The fear is that something similar could happen,” said SWAN’s Graham, who previously served as an Army field artillery officer after the specialty was opened to women. “We’re really not opposed to an evidence-based review, if it’s done legitimately, if it’s done with the proper research questions, if it’s done with the proper sample sizes.”

In “The War on Warriors,” subtitled “Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Hegseth cites the study’s finding that female Marines were injured at a higher rate than male Marines as evidence that women should not serve in combat. But Marine Corps briefing materials on the study found that better screening for physical fitness would have eliminated that issue.

Critics also note that the Marine Corps’ summary of the study omitted findings favorable to mixed-gender units, which had better problem-solving skills, higher morale, and fewer disciplinary issues than all-male units.

Advocates for women in combat argue that Hegseth’s fixation on standards — which he often ties to physical fitness —reflects a limited understanding of the reality of modern combat, which requires soldiers to be flexible, solve complex problems, and increasingly demonstrate technical proficiency.

Designing a study to clearly answer the question of whether women should be in combat units is exceptionally difficult, said Michael McGurk, the former director of research and analysis at the Army’s Center for Initial Military Training, because so many issues come into play.

“How do you determine that women are the factor that’s causing the difference, and not the company commander’s leadership, the sergeant’s leadership?” he said. “You can always find the tactical reason why we shouldn’t do this.”

The future of combat

This March, Houlahan introduced a bill addressing the Pentagon’s decision to reexamine women in combat.

“Now more than ever, we should be supporting each and every servicemember willing to wear the uniform, not scrutinizing and pushing out qualified women simply because they are women,” Houlahan said in a statement.

The bill, called the WARRIOR Act, would prohibit gender-based exclusion in the military and ensure that positions have clear standards reflecting the needs of the job—not only physical requirements, but tactical, technical, and cognitive demands.

Advocates who spoke to The War Horse agree that not every woman is up to the task of serving in combat roles. But if the military is to operate as a true meritocracy, they argue, then everyone — men and women — should be given an opportunity to serve as long as they meet the high standards those jobs require.

“We can’t claim something as the Army’s premier leadership school, and say, well, you know, it’s only for leaders that are male,” said Thomas Stone, a former Army Ranger who oversaw training given to soldiers prior to Ranger School when women were first permitted to attend the course.

And as the nature of combat evolves, so do the skills required of a soldier to excel in it.

Stone pointed out that fitness standards — like the Army Ranger requirement to hike 12 miles with a 35-pound pack — are rooted in earlier conflicts, from a different time. He argued that focusing so much attention on a question of standards developed for older conflicts risks misunderstanding the requirements of a future conflict. The Pentagon, Stone noted, recently earmarked $54 billion for autonomous warfare in its upcoming budget.

“What does the future of war look like?” he said. “Don’t you want the best human being, regardless of gender, piloting that humanoid robot?”

It isn’t a deployment. For the Thomas family, it’s simply military life. For generations, military families were expected to pack up together every time orders arrived. Today, some families are making a different calculation.

Rather than uprooting children’s schools, abandoning established careers, leaving specialized medical care or disrupting custody arrangements, they are maintaining separate households while remaining married, a practice military families often call “geo-baching,” short for geographic bachelorhood.

“Well, you made this choice”

Thomas never imagined living hundreds of miles from her husband. Friends often assume deployments are the hardest part of military life. She disagrees. “To the outside world, you’re still married, your spouse is safe and life appears normal,” Thomas said. “For most we hear, ‘Well, you made this choice,’ but normal is not the word I would use to describe raising children, maintaining a home, nurturing a marriage and carrying the weight of everyday life from different states.”

For Thomas, remaining in Florida preserved two careers, her children’s routines and the support system the family had built.

As Thomas began sharing her family’s experience, military spouses from every service branch reached out with similar stories. Some remained behind to preserve careers or children’s educational stability. Others stayed because of specialized medical care, or support networks.

Those conversations led Thomas to found Family in Flight, a nonprofit that provides peer support, resources and travel assistance to geographically separated military families. She said the organization has connected with hundreds of spouses navigating long-distance marriages shaped not by deployment, but by military life itself.

Jeanne Caruso wanted nothing more than to accompany her husband to his assignment in Okinawa. Instead, she remained in the United States because the specialized care she relies on to manage epilepsy would not be available there. Moving overseas, she said, could place her health at significant risk.

For Navy spouse Tiffany Nguyen, the decision centered on her son. The family was preparing for an overseas move when they learned their child had been deemed unsuitable for permanent change of station by DoDEA based on his Individualized Education Program. Nguyen said she is challenging the determination, arguing that it contains significant discrepancies. She said the family was told schools overseas would be unable to meet her son’s educational needs.

The circumstances differ. The outcome does not. Each family found itself weighing military orders against another responsibility they were unwilling or unable to leave behind.

Although the Defense Department does not track voluntary geographic separation among married service members, Blue Star Families has documented the practice before. In its 2015 Military Family Lifestyle Survey, one in five active-duty family respondents reported choosing geographic bachelorhood at least once during their military career. The most common reasons were a spouse’s career, short military assignments and children’s education.

More recent Blue Star Families research no longer measures geographic bachelorhood specifically, but many of the pressures remain. The organization’s 2025 Military Family Lifestyle Survey identified military spouse employment, military pay, time away from family and dependent children’s education among the leading quality-of-life concerns for active-duty families. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said two incomes were essential to their family’s financial well-being.

A different kind of separation

From the outside, geographic separation can look manageable. Children still go to school. Service members remain stateside. There are no deployment ceremonies or homecomings marking the separation on the immediate calendar.

Inside those households, spouses describe something very different. Thomas handled school pickups, doctor’s appointments, home repairs, sports schedules and sick days without her husband physically present. Parenting conversations happened by phone. Milestones unfolded over video calls.

“It looked like sitting alone at night after the kids were in bed and realizing there was no one else in the house to share the day with,” she said.

Deployment brings family readiness groups, organized community support and a shared understanding that the separation is temporary. Geographic separation often does not.

“When a service member deploys, people understand the sacrifice,” Thomas said. “There are support groups, resources and conversations surrounding that experience. Geo-baching often exists in the shadows.”

A category that doesn’t officially exist

Military families have long navigated involuntary separations through deployments and unaccompanied overseas tours, where the Defense Department determines a service member cannot bring dependents because of mission requirements or host-nation restrictions.

Geographic bachelorhood is different.

Because the arrangement is generally voluntary, the Defense Department does not recognize “geo-bachelor” as an official personnel status or maintain department-wide data on how many families live this way. Married service members who voluntarily relocate without their dependents are generally governed by existing housing and installation policies rather than a separate geo-bachelor program.

Thomas said she still believes her family made the right decision, even though it came at a cost. “We were grateful for the opportunity, the career and that we still had each other through all of that,” she said. “Both realities can exist at once and that is OK.”

In a surprising moment that followed more than an hour of heated debate over the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act on the House floor, Rep. Chris DeLuzio, D-Pa., offered a motion to return the bill to the House Veterans Affairs Committee for review.

The vote on DeLuzio’s proposal was to precede a final vote on the legislation, which has divided veterans groups, and the chamber rejected the effort in a 210-211 vote, with one of four Republicans who initially supported it, Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., changing her vote at the last minute.

But instead of proceeding with the final vote as planned, House leadership pulled the bill, with Johnson saying a decision on the measure now will be delayed for several weeks.

Punchbowl News reported that Johnson blamed “misinformation” over the bill for his reasons to hold the vote.

“Our Veterans Affairs Committee has done a great job engaging with veterans … There still remains, though, a lot of misinformation out there, so instead of putting the bill on the floor this afternoon, we’re gonna delay it just a bit. We’re gonna have several more weeks ahead of us before we get back here in September would be my guess when we process all this again,” Johnson told reporters.

The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, H.R. 9237, encompasses more than 60 pieces of legislation, many of which have widespread support among veterans and advocates, such as the Major Richard Star Act, which would give retired, combat-injured veterans their full Veterans Affairs disability compensation and military retirement, and the Love Lives On Act, which would continue benefits for surviving spouses of the fallen if they remarry before age 55.

But the proposal for covering the cost — enacting a planned rule that would change the requirements for disability compensation for two conditions that commonly affect veterans, sleep apnea and tinnitus, has split the veterans community and lawmakers.

Supporters say the payment proposal is vital to getting the legislation made into law while critics argue that future benefits for veterans should not be used to pay for current needs.

At least 22 veterans organizations support the bill. During a press conference Tuesday, Mario Marquez, the executive director of government affairs for the American Legion, said the proposal represents the best way forward for getting top priorities accomplished.

“Leadership is about carefully evaluating the facts making difficult decisions and accepting responsibility for those actions and those decisions,” Marquez said. “Progress only happens when leaders are willing to tackle difficult issues and keep veterans at the center of the conversation.”

But other groups vociferously oppose it, with the VFW and Disabled American Veterans leading the charge. Their representatives joined Democrat lawmakers in a press conference Wednesday to push lawmakers to vote against the bill.

Past VFW National Legislative Service Director Pat Murray said as an amputee who lost his leg in Iraq and medically retired, he would receive increased compensation as a result of the bill. But, he added, he didn’t want to “get those benefits at the expense of others.”

“We support the provisions of the Major Richard Star Act and we want the full act passed because that is what veterans deserve,” Murray said.

Prior to the planned vote Thursday, lawmakers engaged in heated debate that pitted the chairman and ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee against one another. Chairman Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., said he had taken a lot of heat over the proposal but believed the bill helps “the greatest number of veterans.”

“This bill includes long-standing priorities for veterans, and importantly, it does so in a way that is paid for and capable of actually moving from here to the Senate and to the President’s desk,” Bost said. “At some point, we have to decide whether we’re going to keep talking about these promises or actually move a package that can become law.”

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the committee’s ranking member, has proposed pulling apart the legislation and voting separately on the provisions. Takano said that while he supports many of the legislation’s provisions, he disagrees with a proposal to raise VA home loan fees, several GI Bill initiatives, some health proposals and the payment structure.

“Let’s be crystal clear about what this bill does. It says to troops downrange right now who are in harm’s way that they have to have worse benefits than veterans have today to pay for benefits and care that other veterans have earned. That’s ridiculous,” Takano said.

VA officials confirmed to Military Times that they intend to follow through on the audiology portion of the proposed rule, which would mean that tinnitus, which currently receives a 10% disability rating, would be treated as a symptom of another condition, such as hearing loss or a traumatic brain injury, and would no longer get a standalone rating.

The officials did not address the sleep apnea portion of the rule, but a Politico reporter posted a message on X saying administration officials told her the VA has “made no move to withdraw the proposed sleep apnea rule and will be moving forward with the rule change that appeared on the regulatory agenda.”

Under the proposed rule, veterans with asymptomatic sleep apnea or a mild case controlled by treatment could receive a 0% disability rating.

Bost said that if the VA moves ahead with the 2022 proposed rule, without his legislation, the savings would return to the Treasury Department and not be allocated specifically to veterans.

The estimated savings of enacting the rule could be $57 billion over 10 years.

“New Mexicans who have been affected by these exposures deserve compensation and they deserve to get that compensation free from bad actors attempting to take advantage of them,” Lopez said in a release shortly after a major expansion and extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was signed into law on July 4, 2025.

The measure finally included the New Mexico “Downwinders” from the Trinity blast and their surviving families who were excluded from coverage when RECA initially passed in 1990. Previously, it covered only specific counties in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, which had been exposed to fallout from the more than 900 atomic tests, including 100 above ground, at the Nevada test range between January 1951 and September 1992.

The government at the time claimed there was insufficient data on the impacts of the fallout from the Trinity test to include New Mexico in the coverage.

When the new RECA bill passed last year as part of President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful” tax-cutting bill, it was the first time in 80 years since the Trinity blast that the government acknowledged New Mexicans were entitled to federal assistance.

At a virtual news conference Tuesday, two days before the 81^st anniversary of the Trinity blast, advocates for expanding and extending the current RECA Act, which is set to sunset in 2028, also warned again of the continuing attempts by scam artists to steal compensation from the victims.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., said the long-awaited compensation for the Downwinders had also “opened the door to rampant fraud,” and he urged those eligible for the $100,000 to guard against “bad actors in our community.”

Vasquez also called for the current RECA act to be extended for another 15 years past the 2028 deadline to ensure all victims are compensated.

He urged that the compensation be increased from $100,000 to $150,000.

Even before claims under the new RECA Act could be filed, scammers allegedly were at work last July at a booth at the Eastern Navajo Fair in Crown Point, New Mexico. The booth boasted of assistance in filing claims, according to Maggie Billman, a member of the Sawmill Warriors group advocating for radiation survivors of the Navajo nation.

Billman told Native News Online that she was alarmed by the supposedly official claims forms attendants at the booth were handing out. The forms asked for Social Security Numbers, phone numbers and the hospital where treatment was given.

“I looked at the woman and I said, ‘This is not RECA. Why don’t you give me your business card, and I’ll be in touch? I know a lot about this bill.’ That’s when they stopped talking to me, and I walked away,” Billman said.

Tina Cordova, a co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocacy group and a cancer survivor herself, was not surprised at Billman’s experience with the scammers. She added that she would continue to advocate for New Mexicans with illnesses that do not qualify for compensation under RECA.

“I think that it’s high time our government realizes that we are not going to stand for justice for some,” Cordova said. “We are in favor of justice for not just a few, but justice for the many, and we will continue to fight until we receive justice for all.”

Since RECA was enacted in 1990, the program has approved over 41,000 claims, totaling more than $2.6 billion to Downwinders, according to the Justice Department, which administers the program.

The virtual news conference came two days before the 81^st anniversary of the Trinity blast. In 1945, an eclectic group of scientists enrolled by physicist Robert Oppenheilmer to develop and detonate an atomic bomb gathered in the New Mexico desert to watch whether the thing they called “the gadget” would actually work and usher the world into the atomic age.

Hegseth mulls benefits fix for veterans exposed to radiation at A-bomb test site

The plutonium bomb of about 19-21 kilotons went off at what was then called 5:59 a.m. Mountain War Time with a blinding light visible over a 160-mile radius. It sent up a fiery mushroom cloud hotter than the core of the sun, according to numerous accounts of that morning by the participants and others.

New Mexicans were told nothing. They were not warned before nor after the blast. The public was not told of the Trinity blast until the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war with Japan.

In the interim, the U.S. Army put out a not-to-worry release attributing the colossal blast and fallout to an ammo dump explosion: “Explosion of an ammunition magazine on the Alamogordo Air Base reservation this morning, heard and seen for many miles, was reported today by William O. Eareckson, commanding officer of the air base. There was no loss of life or injuries of persons, Earekson said.”

The Trinity site is now part of the Army’s White Sands Missile Range, which planned no ceremonies nor open house events to mark the anniversary.

The site is opened to the public only once a year in October, and visitors are warned against picking up any of the strange so-called “Trinitite” green and red rocks that were formed when desert sand was sucked up into the mushroom cloud and heated to a glass-like substance before falling back to earth.

The Trinitite still contains tiny traces of radiation. It’s against the law for visitors to try to take the rocks home as souvenirs.

The device, known as the i-STAT Alinity, is being fielded to forward units under the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, or AAMDC.

Air defense formations, the Army said, are often performing tasks that demand high mental acuity in environments far from modern medical equipment.

“In Central Command, we’re seeing disproportionately high traumatic brain injury rates in air defense,” Col. Jessica Peck, the command surgeon for the 10th AAMDC, said in a release. “These jobs demand extremely high cognitive performance. Even a mild traumatic brain injury can significantly degrade effectiveness, impacting coordination, emotional regulation, spatial awareness, and decision-making.”

The test works by analyzing a drop of blood for specific proteins that leak through the blood-brain barrier after a traumatic injury.

The protein scores can assist providers in determining if an injured person may need brain surgery or can return to work after a few days of rest. It can provide information to detect injuries up to 24 hours after the trauma.

Previously, military providers tested potential brain injury victims with memory and concentration assessments, a test Peck said could be easily manipulated.

“People can intentionally perform better or worse depending on what they want the outcome to be,” Peck said in the release, adding “a lot of special operations personnel have memorized the word lists, so they can essentially ‘beat’ the test.”

The new test may also reduce medical evacuations, the Army said, as previously patients with potential brain injuries had to be evacuated from austere environments to for testing.

According to the service, 68% of people evacuated from frontline roles for potential brain injuries were returned to duty during the decade-long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the blood test, some evacuations could be prevented, the Army said.

So far, the system has been used in the Middle East and prevented 13 medical evacuations across Central Command from 2021 to 2022, according to the release.

Because the testing cartridges must be refrigerated, the test will be kept at Role 1 care sites.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns about anti-competitive tactics, questioning the practice of allowing Express Scripts — the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the United States — to have the contract as exclusive administrator of the Tricare pharmacy program, while owning and operating two mail-order pharmacies, Express Scripts Pharmacy and Accredo Specialty Pharmacy.

She questioned whether Express Scripts drives more business to itself, pushing local pharmacies out of the Tricare network and limiting beneficiaries’ access to more personalized local care.

“That is a clear conflict of interest,” Warren said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services’ personnel subcommittee. It’s “an open invitation for Express Scripts to milk the federal government, kick out competitors, and steer big bucks to itself.”

Warren, ranking member of that subcommittee, said DoD requires the Tricare pharmacy contractor to own both a pharmacy benefit manager and a pharmacy.

The contractor, Express Scripts, receives a fixed administrative fee per prescription filled at retail pharmacies or the mail order pharmacy, said Dr. David J. Smith, a retired Navy rear admiral who is deputy director of the Defense Health Agency. The contractor can’t generate revenue from the prices of drugs, he said, and the DoD model eliminates common commercial industry profit mechanisms.

Under the mail-order program, the government buys the drugs, and Express Scripts dispenses the drugs and are paid that administrative fee. The amount of that fee, or other information about the contract, is not public knowledge, as DoD and Express Scripts consider it proprietary information.

Beneficiaries pay $14 per prescription filled through the mail order pharmacy and $16 at network retail pharmacies. That money isn’t kept by Express Scripts; it goes to the Defense Health Agency, said Adam Kautzner, president of Express Scripts and Evernorth Care Management. Beneficiaries can get their prescriptions filled at military treatment facilities at no charge.

In general, DoD has been trying to move to mail order because it’s cheaper, Smith said, and because of the convenience for beneficiaries.

DoD continues to find ways to deliver the benefit to make sure beneficiaries have access to their medication, in a “fiscally responsible way,” he said, adding that they’re also working on ways to shore up the supply chain for medications.

But as the government contractor, Express Scripts decides which pharmacies are in the Tricare retail pharmacy network and how much they are reimbursed.

Since 2022, more than 13,000 local pharmacies have left the network, leaving nearly 400,000 military families scrambling to find a new pharmacy in network, Warren said.

Currently, there are 46,000 retail pharmacies across the country that voluntarily participate in the Tricare retail pharmacy network, Kautzner said. As a result, 98% of beneficiaries have a retail option within 15 minutes of their home, he said, which exceeds the contract requirements.

Of the 46,000 pharmacies in the network, 16,000 are independent pharmacies.

Among those pharmacies that left the network was Roden-Smith Pharmacy in Clovis, N.M. Its owner, Micah Lansford, testified that the terms of the contract Express Scripts offered his pharmacy forced them out of the program in 2023.

Under the previous contract, the pharmacy had been reimbursed an average of about $0.37 below their actual cost for the 6,750 prescriptions they filled, causing the pharmacy to lose nearly $2,500 in 2022.

Under the terms of the contract Express Scripts proposed for 2023, Roden-Smith would have lost nearly $9 on average for each prescription and $60,000 for the same volume in 2023.

Lansford described the real-life consequences for the military community of. having fewer local pharmacies.

“Community pharmacies like mine provide a higher level of personal care, easier access,” he said.

He gave the example of a disabled U.S. Air Force retiree, whose caregiver relied on Lansford to review each monthly fill of medications, reconciling any changes and making sure his medications still made sense.

He also spoke of young active duty spouses who could no longer use his pharmacy drive-thru to pick up an antibiotic for their child, but are instead waiting in long lines to get onto base, hoping the antibiotic is in stock at the military pharmacy.

Greg Reybold, vice president of the American Pharmacy Cooperative, which includes about 1,500 independent pharmacies, said while Express Scripts touts the savings of the mail order pharmacy, it’s cheaper to fill prescriptions at the retail pharmacies than through Express Scripts mail order.

Filling generic drugs at Tricare retail pharmacies is cheaper for beneficiaries, and for the Defense Health Agency, he said. If for example, the drug costs the pharmacy $3, the beneficiary pays that instead of the usual $16 Tricare copay.

When 13,000 retail pharmacies left the network, he said, “the only winner was the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy,” because beneficiaries were forced to use that pharmacy.

Reybold and Lansford both called for an independent audit of the pharmacy program.

“We have a strong desire to serve these people, and want to be there for them,” Lansford said. “And we want a fair deal to provide service.”

The Pentagon announced Wednesday that Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata will draw from military personnel and civilian employees to create the panel, which is tasked with reviewing “the official decisions, coordination, planning, and execution of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate from January 2020 through January 2023.”

In a statement, Tata said the effort will help “establish permanent safeguards against future mandates.”

“By having members of the affected community lead the internal after-action review and further analyze how the COVID-19 vaccine mandate influenced decision-making and readiness — and making the findings public — we will ensure that the Department learns from the past and does not repeat these mistakes in the future,” Tata said.

In addition to Tata’s announcement, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to declassify and release materials related to the mandate, which he said were “essential to learn the lessons of this national security event to ensure we do not make the mistakes of the past.”

The National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies management and organization, is responsible for conducting the after-action review.

According to NAPA, its report is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Hegseth said he would publish the organization’s findings by February 2027.

The COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, spreading globally across the world in a manner of months, infecting more than 779 million people in the years since and killing 7.1 million worldwide.

In the U.S., 103 million individuals have been infected and 1.2 million have died. Within the Department of Defense, 704,000 contracted COVID from March 2020 until December 2022, when the DoD stopped posting updated numbers.

Nearly 700 DoD-affiliated people, including 96 service members, 36 dependents, 417 civilian employees and 141 contractors, died.

To stop the spread of the evolving virus, the first Trump administration worked with private industry to develop a vaccine for the illness. The effort, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, fielded a vaccine within seven months, and over the course of the following year, 2 million U.S. service members were vaccinated.

But some personnel refused to get the vaccine, citing personal or religions reasons. Some felt that since they already contracted the virus, they didn’t need the vaccine, while others took issue with the relatively new technology behind the vaccines. The vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer both use messenger RNA to instruct the body to produce a piece of the virus protein to provoke an immune response.

Still others said they objected to the vaccines because they were created using cell lines developed from fetal tissue obtained in the 1970s and 1980s, although the vaccines themselves contain no aborted fetal tissue.

More than 53,000 filed for exemptions and at least 8,400 were discharged.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allowed service members who refused the mandate to rejoin the military. From early 2023 through June 2025, 126 service members who had refused to receive the shot had returned to service.

At least 56 members of the U.S. Coast Guard who left service as a result of the mandate have returned to duty, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Although the Trump administration was at the forefront of developing a vaccine to stop the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the second Trump administration has taken steps to alter the long-accepted vaccine schedules for children and adults.

The Department of Health and Human Services has crafted a new vaccine recommendation for children that removes flu and COVID vaccines from the regular schedule as well as rotavirus, meningitis and hepatitis A and B.

In April, Hegseth canceled the Defense Department’s mandatory flu vaccine program for service members, saying it was “just overly broad and not rational.”

The military services began drafting requests for exceptions to the liberal policy, with Tata telling members of Congress in May that the services wanted the requirement to remain in place for personnel in close quarters, including basic training, ships, submarines and training schools.

In June, influenza swept through Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, infecting 285 airmen and hospitalizing six. One recruit, Keon McDaniel, died. The Air Force has not publicly stated his cause of death.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and seven other Democrat lawmakers wrote Hegseth Tuesday demanding answers regarding McDaniel’s death.

Castro said earlier this month the Air Force told him McDaniel’s death was a result of the outbreak.

“Politicizing the administration of lifesaving vaccines has led to the death of a service member, the hospitalization of numerous trainees, and an expensive race to retroactively provide our service members the health care they need and deserve,” the group wrote.

The Defense Department did not respond by publication regarding questions on the cost of convening a panel to review the mandate.

Years of bipartisan work on the Major Richard Star Act and dozens of other veterans bills could take a different path if it doesn’t get the votes needed on the senate floor this week.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, told Military Times on Wednesday that Congress should abandon the omnibus package and instead advance the Major Richard Star Act and other bipartisan veterans bills individually rather than risk losing them over the funding dispute.

“If Congress cannot reach agreement on the funding mechanism, I think we can pursue each of these provisions individually,” Takano said. “I believe the Major Richard Star Act would pass in a heartbeat.”

The conflicted legislation includes the Major Richard Star Act, and the Love Lives On Act, along with expanded caregiver support, survivor benefits, community care improvements, education reforms and mental health initiatives affecting millions of veterans, military families, caregivers and survivors.

While many of those measures have broad bipartisan support, disagreement over how to pay for them has become an immovable fencepost blocking forward movement of the package.

Moran defends omnibus strategy

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., defended the legislation, telling Military.com “It takes no benefit away from anyone who is receiving those benefits,” referring to veterans already receiving VA disability compensation for tinnitus or obstructive sleep apnea.

Moran said VA had already indicated it planned to update the disability rating criteria for those conditions and argued Congress should redirect the projected savings into veterans programs rather than allowing the money to return to the broader federal budget.

“If we don’t get out ahead of that business,” Moran said, “the reduction in spending … will not be used for veterans.”

Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander Carol Whitmore has publicly rejected that approach. “When some suggest that veterans’ benefits are too expensive, let us be clear: This is the cost of war,” Whitmore said during a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.

Whitmore has argued that disability compensation reflects the actual cost of military service and has opposed using projected savings from future disability rating changes to finance new veterans benefits. Moran, by contrast, argues those projected savings should remain dedicated to veterans programs instead of returning to the Treasury.

Takano says bipartisan bills should move on their own

For Takano, the funding dispute should not determine the fate of legislation that has spent years building bipartisan support.

At the center is the Major Richard Star Act, which would allow certain combat-injured medically retired service members to receive both military retired pay and VA disability compensation without the dollar-for-dollar deduction. Even with broad bipartisan support, Congress has repeatedly failed to advance the bill because lawmakers have been unable to agree on a funding offset.

“We don’t need to know the pay-for at the outset,” Takano said. “That could be subject to negotiations.”

Asked what alternatives Congress should consider, Takano pointed to unobligated Department of Defense funding and other federal budget offsets.

Two paths forward for veterans legislation

The funding dispute has morphed into a massive debate over legislative strategy. Moran argues the omnibus gives Congress its best opportunity to enact one of the largest veterans legislative packages in years while preserving projected savings for veterans programs. Takano agrees many of the same bills should become law but argues they should not remain tied to a financing plan that has divided lawmakers and veterans organizations.

If Congress cannot reach agreement on the omnibus, lawmakers may face a choice: continue negotiating a single package or begin advancing many of the same bipartisan bills one measure at a time.

For Takano, the question is not whether Congress should expand veterans’ benefits. It is whether one group of veterans should shoulder the cost of another’s gains.

“All veterans have sacrificed. We shouldn’t be asking one group of veterans to sacrifice for the other.”

Under the new program, the secretary said service members aged 30 and older will be tested yearly for testosterone deficiency as part of routine health assessments. Troops under 30, meanwhile, will have the option to be tested, he said.

The decision to receive testosterone replacement therapy — if recommended by a medical professional — will remain up to the individual service member.

“It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight,” Hegseth said in a video posted to X.

The video did not specify if the testing and treatment would be gender-specific and appeared to connect the directive to mental wellness.

“As we know, the modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting,” he said. “It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness. And by addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality and giving you the same level of support that you give this nation — the absolute best.”

The requirement marks the latest policy shift under Hegseth, whose tenure at the Pentagon has included a ban on transgender troops.

“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for Military Service,” a 2025 memo signed by the defense secretary reads.

Hegseth also directed the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for troops in ground-combat roles.

“At my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS [military occupational specialty], for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard only,” he said in an address in Virginia last year.

Military Times asked the Pentagon whether DoD will also give female service members annual hormone screenings and access to testosterone replacement therapy to raise levels to those of a typical male service member, if desired.

The Pentagon declined to provide additional details beyond Hegseth’s announcement.

The strikes mark the latest escalation of attacks and counterattacks launched by the two sides as they vie for control of the Strait of Hormuz, which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas shipments before the war.

“At 6 a.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command forces began launching a wave of strikes against Iran,” the U.S. military said.

“The strikes are designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

There were no immediate reports of attacks in Iranian media. U.S. Central Command said in a statement the military had targeted coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Iran’s Greater Tunb Island, and had completed the wave of strikes within around 90 minutes.

Late on Tuesday the U.S. military said it had hit dozens of military targets near the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian coastal areas in strikes lasting seven hours.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday it had struck U.S. military targets in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

It also threatened on Wednesday to shut off more regional energy exports, saying the U.S. “must brace for the closure of all other export corridors that benefit the U.S. and its allies.”

Hostilities have intensified since Iran said late on Saturday it had closed the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. says Iran had attacked seven commercial ships over the last week, leaving nearly a dozen crew members killed, missing or injured.

‘END OF AMERICA’S EVILS’

The war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, triggered Iranian attacks on Gulf states that host U.S. bases and caused major disruption to global energy supplies, raising fears of a surge in inflation.

Oil prices extended gains by about 1% on Wednesday, after settling on Tuesday on a new one-month high.

An interim ceasefire deal in the conflict signed last month was meant to lead to further negotiations including on Iran’s nuclear program, and to a permanent truce, but a return to talks has faltered.

Analysts say that while the U.S. and Iran have gone back to sparring as they did before the interim ceasefire deal was signed, they are unlikely to return to full-scale war, though a risk of further escalation remains.

They say Iran is signaling it may use its Houthi allies in Yemen to shut Bab el-Mandeb, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world’s most vital energy arteries at risk.

As a result of the war, Iran has been trying to assert permanent control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to impose fees on vessels passing through it, in what would be a major shift of the balance of power in a region where the U.S. has long acted as guarantor of security.

The IRGC said on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until what it described as “the end of America’s evils.”

TRUMP THREATENS TO HIT ENERGY TARGETS

U.S. President Donald Trump, who faces domestic pressure to avoid a full return to war, on Tuesday threatened to hit Iranian power plants and bridges next week unless Tehran resumes negotiations.

“I’ll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we’ll hit energy targets,” Trump said.

U.S. negotiators had been in touch with their Iranian counterparts to tell them “you better make a deal,” Trump added.

As tensions escalated, Trump on Monday floated the idea of a 20% fee on shipping through the strait. On Tuesday, he scrapped the idea and said, without providing details, that he would instead seek investment deals with Gulf states.

The war has killed thousands of people and displaced millions, mainly in Iran and in Lebanon, where conflict was reignited between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said at least 30 civilians had been killed in recent days due to the U.S. strikes on southern Iran, state media reported on Wednesday.

Iran’s army said at least seven active-duty and conscript personnel were killed in overnight U.S. strikes on the Bampur military base in the country’s southeast.

More than five decades after 1968, an especially violent year of the war, the rain, hunger, and calamity in Vietnam’s Central Highlands remain etched in my mind. Death was the purpose of our ambush, and we found it.

I was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 3rd Battalion’s A Company as a forward observer, tasked with bridging the gap between our company and the artillery, air support, and helicopter gunships. We were airlifted there because of a heavy Viet Cong presence nearby.

The relentless rain made our lives miserable, especially for me because I wore glasses, which constantly had to be wiped clear.

Resupply was nearly impossible since we were positioned on a cloud-hugging mountaintop. Our rations were dwindling to dangerous levels, and we faced the possibility of needing to move off the mountain for resupply.

Though helicopters could resupply troops in the field, hiking to the landing zone would have meant abandoning the mission described in this essay. (Photo courtesy of Stanley Ross)

Our single greatest fear, besides walking into an enemy ambush or stepping on a lethal booby trap, was depleting our radio batteries. Without communication to battalion headquarters, we were vulnerable to attack and being overrun by VC. We kept a single spare battery in a waterproof bag for emergencies.

Hiking to the landing zone for more supplies at the mountain’s base was an option, but it meant abandoning the mission. The threat of a VC ambush loomed large, making such a move impractical.

On the fourth day of the operation, the lieutenant and platoon sergeant briefed us on an upcoming assignment: Two squads would organize an ambush; I was to accompany them as the forward observer.

I meticulously prepared my gear while hoping for a break in the weather. The downpour persisted, but our determination to succeed was unwavering.

In the early morning of the ambush, the site was shrouded in darkness as the rain pounded the trees and bushes. It sounded like machine gun fire. My equipment and pack got soaked during our march to the ambush site. I prayed that our vigilance would guard us from being surprised by the enemy.

With a clean and oiled M-16, along with six ammunition magazines in my sling and one in my rifle, I was prepared to confront the enemy. I sat on my spare poncho to keep dry and wrapped the other around my shoulders.

I laid my hand grenades next to me, ready to grab and throw.

The sergeant checked our positions to ensure that no one was in the line of friendly fire. Two of my buddies each placed a claymore mine along the length of the ambush site. If the VC came from either direction, one of the men would trigger the claymore, sending hundreds of small metal pellets flying toward the enemy.

We needed to sit tight, be quiet, remain patient, and stay awake. We had a lot of experience setting up ambushes and being ambushed. Sometimes we caught people and sometimes not, but we never had to kill anyone.

Time stretched on with the torrential downpour. Having to clean my eyeglasses kept me mostly awake. I just dozed, unlike my friends, who were out cold all around me.

Those hours seemed like days, and the rain tapping on the vegetation now sounded like a lullaby. Fear gripped me as I realized that sleeping jeopardized our safety.

Suddenly, I spotted several VC fighters sauntering towards us, AK-47s slung over their shoulders, oblivious to our presence. I felt a rush of adrenaline and dread when an enemy soldier’s face suddenly appeared in front of me.

A burst of shots pierced the silence as I pulled the trigger. Chaos erupted and everyone started yelling. One guy set off his claymore as the VC fled, leaving one of their own behind.

The dead VC was no older than we were, a haunting testament to the horrors of war. I felt numb in the realization that I had taken a life.

The following day, the company packed up and marched to the landing zone, where helicopters airlifted us back to the battalion base camp. We were thankful that our mission had ended with no casualties on our side.

In theory, the mission was a success.

But the memory of that ambush — the rain-soaked nights without food, and, in particular, the dead soldier’s face —continues to haunt me.

He was likely our age, maybe younger. The spiritless, empty look on his face is frozen in my mind. “Does death look like this?” I wondered. His body was like an inanimate object, not the living, breathing person he had been.

Although years have passed, I can still see him moving through the brush, turning his head just as I pulled the trigger. I did not miss.

It was the first time I had to kill someone.

When it was over, he lay a few feet away, his eyes still open. I remember kneeling beside him, waiting for a sound, a breath, that never came.

I took a photo. I told myself it was for the record, but perhaps it was something else. Perhaps proof that I had actually done it. Or guilt. For weeks, I couldn’t look at the picture. When I finally did, I couldn’t let it go.

I thought about his family: a mother waiting for her son, a father who’d never know where he was buried. We laid him in a shallow grave on that mountaintop, the wind cutting through us while scavenger birds circled overhead, looking for a meal.

We were told by our leaders that war was simple: either the other guy or me. At the time, I believed it; now I’m not so sure. That day, I lost a piece of myself I never got back. The boy in me died with that VC. I will always carry the burden of killing another person, marking me forever with the echoes of a distant past.

Sometimes, when the night gets too still, I see his face again. And I remember the moment when everything changed.

As troops look toward a future when their service might be welcome once again, individuals affected by the policy told Military Times that the year and a half time period upended their lives.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a June 1 ruling regarding Talbott v. USA that the Pentagon’s transgender military ban was unconstitutional and that the 30 enlisted plaintiffs involved in the case could continue to serve.

That ruling, which upheld an earlier preliminary injunction and is set to go into effect July 16, applied only to those plaintiffs.

Shortly after, on July 1, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a motion to certify Talbott v. USA as a class action lawsuit, meaning the protections would extend to all transgender service members enlisted in the military.

But not yet.

Before more than the 30 can rejoin, the certification must be complete and the district court must extend the preliminary injunction to the class. The timing of those actions remained uncertain Wednesday.

The U.S. government can fight the ruling and attempt to stall it by petitioning for a rehearing or asking the Supreme Court to intervene, but as of Wednesday, neither have happened.

Transgender civilians looking to enlist are still barred from joining the military.

Cast out

Though transgender troops were optimistic after the June 1 ruling about the future of their service, their path to get right back where they started — being allowed to do their jobs — was grueling.

Military Times spoke with 10 transgender service members who described how the forced separation process and the ensuing administrative leave pipeline pushed them into a perilous mental space.

With their lives on hold, these service members felt depression, anxiety and disillusionment over why an institution to which they had pledged their lives suddenly cast them out, swiftly and seemingly without regard for their psychiatric and professional well-being.

Service members also felt betrayed that the Defense Department used their “gender dysphoria” diagnosis to justify their separation. The term was assigned to service members during previous administrations as a medical diagnosis that allowed them to serve openly as transgender and receive gender-affirming care.

The DoD declined in an email to Military Times to comment on the situation.

Life in limbo

In 2025, after 15 years of service, one transgender U.S. Navy lieutenant was envisioning full retirement, a deserved pension and the health benefits that came along with it.

Just five more years.

Instead, they found themselves at the psychiatric ward at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after checking themself in for suicidal ideation, something they said was abnormal for them.

Eventually, they regained their footing, but the effects were lasting.

“My mental health has just been a dumpster fire,” said the lieutenant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intimate psychological struggles. “This trans ban has made me a completely different person.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27, 2025, that paved the way for the ousting of any transgender service members with a history of “gender dysphoria.”

Sweeping DoD policy followed shortly thereafter, with service members given the opportunity to either apply for voluntary separation — which incentivized service members through bonus pay to leave on their own accord — or wait for likely involuntary separation through the new policy.

A Feb. 26, 2025, Pentagon memo said that troops with a history of gender dysphoria have medical, surgical and mental health constraints “incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.”

Service members saw it as a thinly veiled attempt to get rid of them.

Some transgender service members — the Pentagon has declined to say how many — were placed on administrative “absence,” or Permissive Temporary Assigned Duty (PTAD).

The administrative leave process, which had no precedent in the military for medical conditions, paid service members to not work and barred them from serving while they awaited their separation date.

The lieutenant was able to medically retire on May 22 after their mental health decline triggered a medical board review that deemed them eligible. They spent 16 years in the Navy, just four shy of the 20 they had aspired to serve.

Petty Officer Second Class Jaylen Joubert, a sailor who served about three years, said he was denied administrative leave altogether.

Joubert’s gender dysphoria diagnosis was given to him in October 2024, and his gender-affirming care was set to begin in February 2025. The transgender military ban executive order halted the process.

After expressing frustration to his commanding officer for being denied PTAD, he said he was involuntarily separated on April 17, 2026, due to conditions not amounting to a disability, but related to mental health and mental turmoil.

A loss of direction

Senior Master Sgt. Jamie Hash joined the military to be a part of something bigger than herself.

In 2025, with 13 years in the U.S. Air Force already under her belt, she had planned to serve at least 20 years and retire. So when Trump rolled out the ban and DoD policy ensued, she decided to reject the voluntary separation process and fight to remain.

“I don’t want to leave based on something that’s not specific to my performance or capability,” Hash said.

She has been on administrative leave since June 2025, and the leave has impacted her professional goals.

Hash had been awarded a prestigious three-year legislative fellowship in summer 2024 that allowed her to work as a liaison between the Defense Department and Congress, but the opportunity was jeopardized with the ban.

Though technically enrolled in the fellowship program, she wasn’t allowed to show up and take advantage of any its resources or perform any duties during her forced leave.

This loss of direction and purpose was commonplace for many.

For Master Sgt. Sabrina Bruce, who served in the Air Force for eight years and the Space Force for four, the military provided a second lease on life, as well as a support network that made her feel whole.

She’d realized her worth. But now that community was gone.

“Joining the military was the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Bruce. “Before the military, no one saw potential in me.”

Depression and suicidal thoughts plagued her for several months during the administrative leave process, which finally ended in December 2025 when she officially voluntarily separated.

Army Maj. Erica Vandal, who separated on Jan. 1, after nearly 15 years of service, described the administrative leave process as a “state of limbo.”

Vandal said she was still figuring out who she was as a person outside of the military. She was currently filling the void with advocacy work, she said, and continuing to search for something that fulfilled a sense of purpose similar to what the military offered.

Nicolas Talbott, the lead plaintiff in Talbott v. USA — the high-profile case challenging the ban — joined the Army National Guard in March 2024 and commissioned as a second lieutenant.

It took him nearly a decade to enlist after legal battles and the shifting policies of different presidential administrations, including both of Trump’s.

Talbott told Military Times that serving his country was the best job he’d ever had, combining every field of study he was passionate about: national security, counter terrorism and high-stakes environments that require precise decisions.

But after serving less than one year, his future in the military was once again cast into doubt.

“Stuck in a constant state of limbo has become the norm for me,” Talbott said.

The process wasn’t only grating for his mental health, but difficult for those around him too, including family members. They’d witnessed him work hard for everything he’d gotten, and then they watched as he found himself in what they viewed as an unfair situation.

Grooming, uniform standards

Several service members described administrative leaves and separation processes that felt designed to disrespect and humiliate them, as it barred them from donning the uniform they’d worn since their transitions.

The military made them adhere to the grooming standards of their gender assigned at birth during retirement ceremonies and graduations from prestigious military schools, they said.

U.S. Space Force Col. Bree Fram officially retired on Dec. 31, 2025, after serving for nearly 23 years. She opted to voluntarily separate once she realized the Trump administration would no longer allow her to serve.

Fram was the first openly serving transgender service member to be promoted to the rank of colonel. Despite the momentous achievement, she wasn’t allowed to wear her uniform during her retirement ceremony on Jan. 8, 2026.

Inexplicably, the DoD changed her military records on Dec. 1, 2025, to reflect her gender assigned at birth, not her actual gender, Fram said. Had she walked across the stage in the female uniform she’d been wearing for years, she would’ve been brought up on charges because it would now violate Uniform Code of Military Justice regulations barring opposite-gender uniforms.

Instead, she wore a business suit.

“These were the uniforms that we bled into, that we sweat into, that we were denied even that small dignity of wearing,” Fram said.

Her service dress uniform and boots were placed on a table off to the side as she walked across the stage.

About two weeks before her gender was denied publicly, she dealt with what she said was another slight. She was summoned to the Pentagon by a lieutenant general deputy chief of space operations.

In the meeting, which lasted 15 minutes, the lieutenant general told Fram that the official support she’d requested for her retirement ceremony — which included an honor guard and a band, both very common for ceremonies — would not be granted because there were concerns it would have the appearance of being political.

The officer then reminded Fram that she was still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which Fram found unusual.

“I took this very much as a warning or a veiled threat, to be be silent, to not talk about these things,” Fram said.

Army Infantry Major Kara Corcoran has served for over 18 years and is currently involved in the involuntary separation process.

In May 2025, she graduated from the School of Advanced Military Studies after completing an esteemed one-year master’s degree program that trained her to become an operational planner.

But she was informed by her chain of command that senior leadership had prohibited her from crossing the stage with her peers during graduation unless she adhered to male regulations and standards, in keeping with the new DoD policy.

“Cruelty was the point,” Corcoran said of the rule.

She was given an option to have a separate ceremony, or just be given her diploma instead.

She borrowed an old friend’s male uniform, cut her long hair into a pixie cut the day before the graduation ceremony and walked across the stage.

“You’re not gonna take away something I’ve earned,” Corcoran said. “If you think that cutting my hair is going to affect my identity, you don’t understand the strength and resilience of transgender service members.”

Bait and switch

Nearly all of the transgender service members who spoke to Military Times transitioned after joining the military, but in order to begin gender-affirming care, they had to receive a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” from a doctor.

Gender dysphoria is defined by the Mayo Clinic as a “feeling of distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.” But the clinic also notes that while some transgender people experience gender dysphoria, others feel comfortable with their bodies and gender identities.

“Not all transgender or gender diverse people experience gender dysphoria,” the clinic says.

The diagnosis was now being used to cast out transgender troops.

Many of the service members who spoke to Military Times said they either never had gender dysphoria but agreed to the diagnosis as a way to receive gender-affirming care, or they had experienced the feeling in the past but had not after transitioning.

Using the diagnosis against them was an unfair bait and switch, many said.

Staff Sgt. Athena N. Knight served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 14 years and opted for voluntary separation. She was honorably discharged on June 30, 2026.

Knight said she never had clinical gender dysphoria and didn’t meet the criteria for the ban.

“I don’t have gender dysphoria, I’m just transgender,” Knight said.

She was given the diagnosis under Defense Department Instruction 1300.28 “In-Service Transition for Transgender Service Members,” but explained it was because it provided the only path to receive necessary gender-affirming care.

The difference was similar to the distinction between someone being depressed and clinically depressed, Knight said. They’re not the same.

Someone could experience symptoms of gender dysphoria and not have clinical gender dysphoria.

Using gender dysphoria to expel someone from the military not only confused the service members it affected, but it also didn’t make sense legally, advocates said.

“There’s not one other medical condition that results in automatic discharge from the military,” said Shannon Minter, who works for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and is the lead attorney in the Talbott v. USA case.

Master Sgt. Logan Ireland, who’s served for 15 years in the Air Force, said he’s never felt dysphoric about his gender.

But based off DoD policy under the Trump administration, he faced separation despite wanting to continue serving.

Ireland initially applied for retirement after the Air Force extended the possibility of early retirement for transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of service.

He received retirement orders from the Air Force in June. But then, several months later, the Air Force issued a memorandum saying his application for early retirement was denied. Voluntary separation was offered, but Ireland didn’t want it at that point.

He is suing the Trump administration with other service members from the Air Force and Space Force over what they say is a loss of early retirement benefits.

“I had to get the diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to continue serving in the military authentically as male,” Ireland said. “So for me it was a checkbox.”

Even though he had the diagnosis, it was easily curable through hormones and living as his authentic self, which he said he was doing.

“I’m a male,” Ireland said. “I live happily, healthfully as a male. There’s zero issue with me having a gender dysphoria diagnosis in a past medical history, because it’s already been corrected.”

Question of return

The Talbott v. USA ruling is set to go into effect Thursday, but if the class action is certified, it remains unclear what the protections mean for service members who voluntarily separated but want to return now that the ban was ruled unconstitutional.

Regardless, transgender troops have expressed mixed feelings about returning to an organization that rejected their service to their country.

“I don’t think I’ll get back in uniform unless something drastic happens,” Knight said.

She expressed concern about having to return the money she was given by the military as an incentive to voluntarily separate. She also wasn’t sure about going through a potentially complicated reenlistment procedure, given the disability rating she received upon exiting the service.

The Navy lieutenant who sought help at Walter Reed said they didn’t want to rejoin the military after it turned its back on them. But at the same time, serving another four years would get them to 20 and allow them to receive a significant upgrade in retirement benefits.

As of last week, they were considering all their options.

Corcoran was unequivocal in her commitment to returning — if given the chance.

“I want to finish out my 20 years and do my job, and be able to be a productive teammate,” Corcoran said. “The whole point of why I joined the military was to serve my country.”

Under the new memorandum of understanding, VA and HHS plan to increase clinical trial participation, train therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they receive federal approval and collect data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators in considering such treatments.

The agreement follows an executive order signed in April by President Donald Trump that directed the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate its review of several psychedelic treatments for mental illnesses.

The order largely addressed research for ibogaine, a hallucinogen derived from an African shrub, that some veterans have found helpful in ameliorating anxiety, PTSD and depression symptoms. It commits at least $50 million to increase research on ibogaine therapy.

Studies on PTSD in the general population have shown that a third may be resistant to traditional treatments, with up to 50% not responsive to psychological therapy and 40% untreatable with common medications.

An estimated 4.8 million American veterans have used psychedelic drugs, according to a study released last month by the think tank RAND.

Included in Monday’s message was the announcement that the VA signed an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration to increase collaboration to support the development of therapies for treating serious mental health conditions.

“President Trump opened up a world of possibility for treating veterans and others with mental health conditions, and VA is proud to be part of this important work,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “Today’s MOU ensures effective cooperation with HHS as we try to turn research into life-changing treatment.”

VA researchers are involved in more than 20 research trials on the use of psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin for treating severe post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and other mental health conditions.

Studies also are underway in the Defense Department: a $4.9 million research study is ongoing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on the effectiveness of MDMA — known commonly as Molly or Ecstasy — for the treatment of mild to moderate PTSD.

According to RAND, the most common hallucinogens used by veterans across their lifetimes were LSD, with 19.6% reporting its use, followed by psilocybin, or magic mushrooms at 18.6%, MDMA and mescaline, both at 7.7%.

Fewer than 2.9% reported using another type of hallucinogenic drug such as ibogaine, ketamine or ayahuasca.

The study also found that veterans were more likely to support the legal use of psilocybin mushrooms and LSD — 23% for mushrooms and 11% for LSD — but support for MDMA, at 9%, was about the same as the rest of the country.

Ron Adkins, an Army Reserve intelligence analyst and veterans advocate who deployed twice to Afghanistan, was on hand Monday for the MOU signing. He said the significance of the agreement lies in exploring new approaches to “the complexity of mental illness.”

“The cognitive space is a very complex environment. We are all very different people, so the treatments that might work very well for one person could be wholly ineffective for another,” Adkins said in an interview with Military Times. “I’m hoping we get better answers on what is effective for [veterans] trying to figure this out.”

U.S. veterans have traveled to Israel, Mexico and elsewhere in the past decade to receive psychedelic treatment for mental health disorders, often paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for the promise of relief.

Adkins said that should not happen.

“We need to continue to innovate as we as a nation does,” Adkins said.

In 2024, the FDA rejected a request that MDMA be approved for treating PTSD in adults, saying more research was needed to determine its safety and efficacy. The VA is conducting such a study in Providence, Rhode Island, with 80 veterans, comparing MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and substance use with a placebo.

VA officials say while the department is studying treatments that use Schedule I drugs prohibited in the U.S. under federal law, veterans are discouraged from self-medicating with these substances or replacing their medical treatment with unprescribed substances.

“Proven, evidence-based treatments, are currently available at VA facilities to treat veterans with mental health conditions. Veterans should always consult their health care providers before making any treatment decisions,” officials said in a press release.

Four thousand soldiers in Area North Barracks are opening windows, turning on fans or using other tools to beat the heat while the base grapples with pump issues.

On July 10, deep-well pumps supporting Army installations in central and northern Oahu started experiencing problems.

According to the garrison, only one pump is currently pushing water to the surface. To maintain essential water services, water chiller systems have been turned off. Without the chiller systems — which make up almost 40% of the daily water use — the barracks do not receive central air conditioning. The incident was initially reported by Task & Purpose.

According to the National Weather Service, temperatures for the remainder of the week range from the mid-70s to the upper-80s.

Units are able to move troops to MWR facilities with central air conditioning, according to the service, but as of Sunday, no units had done so.

Repairs are underway, but an exact timeline for when the pumps will be fully functional again was not provided.

The cause of the issues has not been definitively identified, however “age and extreme heat due to ventilation system repairs are believed to be part of the cause,” said Nathan Wilkes, the garrison’s external communications chief.

The installation is prioritizing keeping safe drinking water available.

Barracks and residential housing have access to drinkable water, and plumbing and sanitation systems are operational. Wilkes also said the installation has paused irrigation systems pulling from Area North water supply.

Family housing still has air conditioning and water access, Wilkes added.

The garrison’s commander, Col. Rachel Sullivan, was scheduled to host a town hall on the installation’s Facebook page on Tuesday.

Despite a goal of 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025, the Army had only managed to produce 36,000 rounds per month as of March 2026, according to a report published this month by the Department of Defense Inspector General.

Shell production requires first building the projectile at a metal parts factory, followed by packing the shell with explosives at another facility. But this means “projectile metal part production is the limiting factor for reaching the 100,000 round-per-month goal for 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report noted.

The Army has not been able to forge enough metal parts to ramp up production of projectiles. In particular, “at a contractor-owned, contractor-operated facility in Mesquite, Texas, the contractor has been unable to produce any projectile metal parts that meet contract specifications,” the report reads.

After investing $469 million, the Army opened a modular metal parts factory in Mesquite, Texas in 2024. The Universal Artillery Projectile Lines facility — operated by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems — was supposed to use “modern manufacturing practices, high levels of automation and digital data capture ability” to forge large numbers of large-caliber metal parts for shells, the Army announced at the time.

That optimism proved premature.

Officials at the Army’s Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics, or CPE A&E, “issued the contract and accepted the risk associated with purchasing and adapting unique production equipment which had not been proven to meet U.S. specifications,” the IG report said.

To save time, the Mesquite factory tried to adapt manufacturing lines originally designed to make parts for the M107 155-mm shell — which dates back to 1958 — rather than the newer M795.

CPE A&E “accepted the risk associated with the contractor’s plan to purchase and adapt M107 metal part production equipment to produce a newer variant of the 155-mm projectile metal parts at different specifications,” said the report.

The report noted that some Army officials had concerns regarding an older ammunition plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that included “separate ongoing problems with the contractor in terms of responsiveness, equipment maintenance, and timeliness. Those officials expressed concern to the evaluation team that ACC [Army Contracting Command] did not open the contract for the Mesquite facility to competition from other contractors.”

The bottleneck at the Mesquite plant left the Army’s three existing plants in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Ingersoll, Canada, to try to pick up the slack.

Amid voracious expenditure of 155-mm rounds by Ukraine that depleted U.S. stockpiles, DoD issued a congressionally-mandated plan in 2022 to modernize howitzer ammunition production. DoD’s 2025 National Defense Industrialization Strategy Implementation Plan aimed at churning out 100,000 155-mm shells per month by October 2025.

The Army’s efforts have borne some fruit, with production nearly tripling to 14,000 shells per month to 36,000. By modernizing the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant and creating two new facilities in Kansas and Arkansas, the Army hopes to load, assemble and pack 140,000 155-mm rounds by December 2027.

In the meantime, the IG suggested the Army could get a refund.

The report recommended that the Army review the contract for the Mesquite facility to determine how the money was spent and whether the DoD can recoup any funds and also “determine whether the Mesquite contract was appropriately issued.”

The restructuring will also create the Army’s first operational unmanned aircraft system, or UAS, battalion at Fort Hood, where new hangars will support the larger HADES jet aircraft.

The move will begin in Fiscal Year 2027, when the brigade headquarters and two battalions relocate to the installation, followed by the remaining battalion and companies the following fiscal year.

The Army said the relocation stems from a 2018 operational gap analysis that found its legacy aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or AISR, fleet lacked necessary range and sensor capabilities.

“HADES will enable the Army and Joint Force to conduct long-range sensing to enable the execution of long-range precision fires,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy Brown, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.

HADES is a crewed, next-generation AISR system that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to process data, the release said. The system will be fielded aboard new jet aircraft.

The service plans to purchase up to 11 custom Bombardier Global 6500 jets for the HADES program, Military Times reported in January. According to an Army Request for Information, the new jets must be able to fly at a sustained speed of 450 knots at an altitude of 51,000 feet. They must also be able to carry a minimum payload of 14,000 pounds for at least 12 hours.

HADES’s introduction follows the Army’s retirement of approximately 60 turboprop ISR aircraft. The Army said it is “pursuing” ATHENA-R/S jet platforms in the interim until HADES is fielded.

According to the Army, the changes will increase personnel at Fort Hood by 1,228. It will also decrease personnel at Fort Bliss, Texas, by 242; Fort Gordon, Georgia, by 638; Fort Stewart, Georgia, by 186; and Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, by 162.

As military leaders prepare for wars shaped by drones, artificial intelligence and rapidly shifting battlefield conditions, however, defense experts say the Pentagon still struggles to answer a more difficult question: How do you know whether a force can adapt when the unexpected happens?

Future conflicts are widely expected to unfold faster and with greater uncertainty than the wars the United States has fought in recent decades. Communications may be disrupted, battlefield conditions may shift rapidly and long-held assumptions about how wars are fought could prove wrong almost overnight.

The military has spent decades refining how it measures readiness.

Yet, many of the qualities defense experts say will matter most in future wars — judgment, initiative and the ability to adapt under pressure — remain difficult to define and even harder to quantify.

Adaptability matters more than ever

Military leaders have long understood that no plan survives first contact unchanged. The challenge, according to defense experts, is that rapid technological change is making future conflict increasingly difficult to predict.

The Pentagon has acknowledged as much.

The 2022 National Defense Strategy describes a security environment undergoing profound strategic and operational change shaped by evolving threats, emerging technologies and growing uncertainty. That uncertainty presents a dilemma for military planners.

Militaries must make long-term decisions about doctrine, force structure and expensive weapon systems years before conflict begins, said Nora Bensahel, professor of practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“You have to train your forces to fight in a particular way, but the odds are you’re going to be wrong,” she said. “Any prediction for the future at any point in history has always been difficult, and now with the really exponential pace of change, the odds that you get it wrong are even higher.”

Lessons emerging from Ukraine have intensified those concerns.

Bensahel said the proliferation of drones is fundamentally reshaping warfare and forcing military organizations to reconsider longstanding assumptions about ground combat. The rapid evolution of unmanned systems, she said, demonstrates how quickly the character of warfare can change.

Military leaders across the services have responded by expanding experimentation and accelerating modernization efforts.

U.S. Army leaders have cited lessons emerging from Ukraine as they adapt formations and concepts for large-scale combat operations, while the Navy has expanded experimentation with unmanned surface and undersea systems. The Air Force continues pursuing autonomous aircraft concepts and collaborative combat aircraft programs.

The limits of readiness metrics

The military tracks everything from personnel strength and training proficiency to equipment readiness and mission-capable rates. Those metrics remain essential for determining whether units can perform assigned missions.

Current readiness systems are largely designed to assess whether military units can execute assigned missions using established criteria. Army unit status reporting, for example, tracks personnel levels, equipment on hand, equipment readiness and training proficiency, while broader Defense Department readiness systems focus on resource levels and mission capability.

Military officials can readily determine whether a unit is manned, trained and equipped. Predicting how that unit will respond when battlefield beliefs collapse is more difficult.

“Readiness indicators are very important, but they can’t tell you anything about adaptability,” Bensahel said. “They’re not designed to do that.”

Current readiness systems primarily assess personnel, equipment, training and mission capability, while qualities such as adaptability, judgment and cognitive flexibility are addressed more indirectly through doctrine and leader development.

Bensahel defines military adaptability through three interconnected elements: doctrine, technology and leadership. All three, she argued, must evolve as conditions change if military organizations are to remain effective.

What adaptive leaders look like

Army doctrine offers one institutional answer. Although adaptability is not formally measured, military doctrine incorporates many of its core characteristics through the concept of mission command.

Mission command encourages subordinate leaders to exercise disciplined initiative, accept prudent risk and adapt their actions to changing conditions while operating within a commander’s intent. Rather than prescribing exactly how tasks must be accomplished, mission orders are intended to maximize freedom of action and enable leaders to respond when battlefield conditions change.

Mission command doctrine also teaches many of the behaviors associated with adaptive leadership. Leaders are expected to think critically, exercise disciplined initiative, accept prudent risk and empower subordinates to make decisions when circumstances change unexpectedly.

Military leadership frameworks describe adaptive leaders as individuals capable of critical thinking, learning agility, decentralized decision-making and operating amid uncertainty while building trust and empowering subordinates to act independently when conditions demand it.

Embedding those qualities across a force of more than two million service members and civilians presents a different challenge.

Bensahel argued that the U.S. military has not always adapted quickly enough during recent conflicts. Although junior leaders frequently demonstrated adaptability during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said senior leaders and institutions were often slower to adjust to changing battlefield realities.

Lessons emerging from Ukraine have heightened concerns about whether military organizations can adapt quickly enough to rapidly changing battlefield conditions. Battlefield innovations can now emerge, proliferate and alter combat operations in a matter of months, rather than years.

Technology alone won’t improve adaptability

Much of the debate surrounding future warfare focuses on emerging technologies. Bensahel argued that adaptability ultimately depends less on hardware than on mindset.

“The most important thing for military leaders up and down the chain of command need to have in order to be adaptable is flexibility of thinking” and the ability to try new solutions when existing approaches fail, she said.

Developing that mindset requires organizations to tolerate experimentation and, at times, failure.

“If you want to get leaders in the habit of trying new things that might or might not work, you have to have some tolerance for failure,” Bensahel said.

That can be difficult inside large military institutions, where bureaucratic processes, oversight requirements and organizational culture often reward certainty and discourage failure. Without experimentation, adapting to changing conditions becomes significantly more difficult, Bensahel said.

The Defense Department has spent decades building lessons-learned systems and preserving operational experience through archives, after-action reviews and institutional repositories.

Collecting information is no longer the central challenge, according to Ben Connable, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer and former RAND researcher. Instead, he said, the problem is turning information into knowledge and embedding those lessons throughout the force.

“There’s almost a belief that knowledge now exists in this kind of ether,” Connable said. “We don’t really have to do much with it anymore.”

Organizations can accumulate enormous amounts of information while still struggling to translate that information into institutional learning, Connable said.

“The more digitization we have ... the worse we’re actually doing at synthesizing it for knowledge,” he said.

Connable explained that military education often relies heavily on historical examples while placing less emphasis on extracting lessons from more recent conflicts.

“We’ve done a particularly poor job of transmitting recent cases into modern knowledge,” he said. “The lessons that you fail to learn, you wind up repeating.”

In a letter to one beneficiary dated July 2 and provided to Military Times, TriWest officials said they had discovered a security incident April 16, in which an unauthorized person gained limited, unauthorized access to TriWest information and downloaded it.

“We are unaware of any misuse of your information,” officials stated in the letter, but they went on to say TriWest is offering a free credit-monitoring service for those who feel it’s needed.

The unauthorized person obtained health-related and other personal information, specifically names, Department of Defense Benefits Numbers and beneficiaries’ ZIP codes. Officials said that in fewer than five instances, the information also included Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth.

About four million beneficiaries are covered by TriWest, the managed care contractor for the Tricare West Region. Active duty, retired, National Guard and Reserve, and their family members, survivors and certain former spouses receive their health care under DoD’s Tricare program, with eligibility determined by the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS.

TriWest is notifying each beneficiary about what information was involved in their specific case.

The timing of the notifications was unclear, since at least one letter was dated July 2, about two and a half months after the incident occurred.

“With regard to timing, as soon as the incident was discovered, TriWest took immediate action to prevent any further unauthorized activity and worked diligently with the government to notify affected individuals, consistent with applicable law and notification timelines,” TriWest officials said in an email response to Military Times.

The company hired a third-party forensic expert to review what information was accessed during the incident.

Beneficiaries who want to use the free credit-monitoring service, offered through Experian for 24 months, should enroll by the deadline provided in their notification letter, using the activation code and instructions included in the letter.

Those who find suspicious activity should notify the TriWest Healthcare Alliance Breach Response Line, at 1-833-918-1296. Beneficiaries who believe they are victims of identity theft should file a report with the Federal Trade Commission at identitytheft.gov.

The company has taken steps to prevent any other such incidents, officials said, including increasing security controls related to password resets, strengthening system access monitoring tools and providing additional employee education on identifying and mitigating the different types of cyber attacks.