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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. ANTAGONIST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experts say instability in Cuba threatens a migration crisis.

The Selective Retention Bonus list contains only 24 specialties eligible for reenlistment bonuses, compared to 89 in fiscal year 2025.

Last fiscal year, the career fields included were: maintenance, aircrew, cyber, medical and special operations specialty codes. There are only two maintenance fields for B-52 and B-1 aircraft and three medical specialties eligible for fiscal 2026.

“The Air Force assesses manning requirements annually, updating the SRB list to retain the critical talent needed for global missions,” an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times on Friday.

The Air Force spokesperson did not comment on the drop in career fields eligible from last fiscal year.

Airmen whose specialty codes are included are eligible to receive the bonus upon reenlisting and extending their service within the SRB specialty code.

The Air Force allotted for the addition of 4,300 airmen to the SRB program in fiscal 2026, according to budget documents — a decrease from 7,077 service members in fiscal 2025. The service estimates a small bump to 4,600 airmen for fiscal 2027.

SRB zones represent the amount of years of active military service, with Zone A being up to six years of service and Zone E being 18 to 20 years.

The fiscal 2026 list is available for Department of the Air Force personnel to view on myFSS. Currently, the list is not disclosed publicly, but an Air Force official did confirm it to Military Times as shown on Air & Space Forces Magazine where it was first reported.

The maximum reenlistment bonus is set to $180,000, with a career cap of $360,000, according to the magazine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The $4.16 billion agreement is meant to boost the delivery timeline of a “space-based sensing layer” as part of the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator, or SB-AMTI, project, according to a Friday Space Systems Command release.

“By focusing these capabilities to the space domain, we are providing the Joint Force with sustained battlespace awareness of contested airspace,” Col. Ryan Frazier, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for Space Based Sensing & Targeting, said in the release.

By 2028, the award is projected to field a constellation of satellites to assist the Joint Force in eliminating operational blind spots.

The release states that traditional military airborne platforms to trace moving targets are confronting challenges as adversaries develop anti-access/area-denial systems, or A2/AD, propelling the need for more resilient tracking structures. The Space Force anticipates operating second- and third-generation SB-AMTI systems by 2035.

The SB-AMTI program represents a “deeper collaboration” within the government space industrial base as it utilizes space-based sensors, secure and quick communication connections and ground processing, the announcement reads.

“We will not leverage any one single provider; instead, we are partnering with a highly diversified pool of traditional and non-traditional vendors, each bringing various capabilities to support the SB-AMTI architecture, ensuring the Joint Force has access to a strong, competitive industrial base well into the future,” Frazier said.

The Portfolio Acquisition Executive for SBST granted the Other Transaction Authority agreement by using a hybrid acquisition model to combine the OTA with an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity acquisition approach, the release says.

SpaceX is not the only company in the SB-AMTI vendor pool. Others selected were announced by Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink in April 2026 during the Space Symposium, but their identities and pricing were withheld for national security reasons.

The release says that this agreement established “initial SB-AMTI capability,” but the Space Force expects to issue numerous awards in the next year to expand their diverse vendor pool.

Within the Department of the Air Force fiscal year 2027 budget request of $338.8 billion, the Space Force seeks $7.06 billion in funding for the SB-AMTI program to expand its high-band radar system’s coverage regionally, and potentially globally, for detecting and tracking airborne threats, according to budget documents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the academy’s Thursday graduation ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Vance urged cadets to dictate their own decisions and not “submit” to AI as the technology continues to change warfare.

“As AI transforms the battlefield in some ways positively, in some ways not, I ask that you be jealous and selfish about your role as the decision maker in warfare,” Vance said in a commencement address.

“You are the masters of warfare. And both your minds, but also your hearts, are the opposite of artificial,” Vance continued.

Vance discussed the recent commencement addresses given by corporate leaders around the country that have gone viral online after graduates have booed them once they spoke about the benefits of AI, calling Americans’ worries over the technology’s impact on the labor market, resources and social effects understandable.

The vice president also referenced the recently released Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical Letter that explains how society must “disarm” AI, saying it needs to be prevented from “dominating humanity.”

Vance said he endorsed the sentiment that human beings can not outsource the “most important moral decisions to digital technology.” He said that what makes American warfighters unique is how the country wages war “justly,” saying that it is the service members who guarantee lethality coexists with heart and conscience in war.

“If the warfare of the future is to live up to the moral values of our ancestors, decisions over life and death must be made by humans and not machines,” Vance said in the address.

Pentagon policy isn’t keeping pace with autonomous weapons, senators argue

Recently, the Air Force has made strides to recruit and train AI professionals, aligned with the Defense Department’s grander strategy to advance the nation’s AI capabilities. The Pentagon has pushed AI platforms across the military in an effort to become an “AI-first” force.

The reliance on AI has cast doubt about the reliability of the systems, especially after roughly 168 people were killed in a strike on an elementary school by a Tomahawk cruise missile on Feb. 28, the first day of the Iran war. U.S. officials have not yet acknowledged full responsibility for the strike but have said that the incident is under investigation.

The Trump administration has sought an executive order requiring AI models to receive government oversight and review, but President Donald Trump postponed signing the order, citing his concern to reporters last week with the U.S. falling behind competitors, such as China, in the AI race.

An agreement would represent a big step toward ending a war that has pushed the world toward an energy crisis, though the underlying dispute over Iran’s nuclear program would only be thrashed out in talks over subsequent weeks.

Where are the discussions now?

Following a ceasefire in early April, the two sides have remained at odds on issues including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Israel’s war in Lebanon with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, and Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets.

After weeks of mainly indirect talks, four sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday that the U.S. and Iran had agreed a memorandum of understanding that would halt the war and give negotiators 60 days to reach a final deal.

However, both sides have said several times before that they believed an agreement was close but without ever concluding an agreement. The position of Israel, which launched the air war on Iran on February 28 alongside the United States, is central to any deal but its role in the agreement is unclear.

President Donald Trump has not yet approved the deal, according to the sources. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday: “We’re not there, but we’re very close and we’re going to keep working on it”.

Iran has not yet formally commented, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency cited a source close to the negotiating team as saying the text of the agreement had not yet been finalised or confirmed.

Iranian sources have previously said a framework deal is only about ending the war on all fronts, establishing a 30-day framework for international and Iranian movement through the Strait of Hormuz and possibly providing some financial relief.

There would then be negotiations on the more difficult issues, such as the status of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and details concerning the strait, and the sequencing of the many points in the preliminary deal such as sanctions relief and security.

The last deal over the nuclear program — struck in 2015 and torn up by Trump in 2018 — took years of negotiations between large teams of technical experts.

Hormuz and the gulf blockade

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas, has pushed up oil prices. Reopening the strait is the U.S. priority and Iran’s main point of leverage, but it could take time.

Many vessels are stuck in the Gulf and Iran says it has laid some sea mines that could be difficult to locate.

US munitions depleted by Iran war will take years to restore, analysis finds

The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports is hitting Iran’s own exports and state revenue. Lifting this is one of Tehran’s main goals. A sensitive issue could be how far U.S. forces withdraw.

Nuclear

The U.S. says it believes Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic program is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead.

The nuclear question is extremely complicated. Iran might eventually agree to dilute part of its highly enriched uranium in a friendly country into uranium enriched to 5% purity and then have it returned, Iranian sources said.

But many other issues would still need to be addressed: How long the nuclear program would be halted, whether nuclear sites would be dismantled, what happens to stockpiles of uranium enriched to 20% and 5%, the future of Iran’s advanced centrifuges and research and development programs and the rules governing an inspections regime, among others.

Ballistic missiles

A prominent U.S. demand before the war was that Iran limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. Iran has always said its right to conventional weapons is non-negotiable and that it still has a large arsenal.

Sanctions and frozen assets

Iran’s economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage.

The U.S. has resisted this, with Trump having lambasted former president Barack Obama for having returned some frozen assets to Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal. Some media have reported that the latest draft agreement would include an investment program for Iran.

Lebanon

Iran has repeatedly said that Israel’s war against its main ally Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any deal. Israel and Lebanon agreed a ceasefire last month but both Israel and Hezbollah accuse each other of repeated violations and Israel’s military is ramping up its campaign in southern Lebanon. Israel would oppose any U.S.-Iran agreement that limits its ability to act in Lebanon.

I grew up in the house my great-grandparents built, a home where four generations shared laughter, loss, and celebrations. These same walls that once harbored the joy of my grandfather’s courtship were the ones that eventually held the pain of the day my grandmother learned he had been killed in action during World War II.

While growing up in this same house, I always knew of a box of letters my grandfather, Otis Bryant, had written from the war, most of them addressed to his wife and some to his mother. I read one or two during childhood, but in my mid-20s, I felt compelled to read them all in chronological order.

He was my grandpa, and I loved him, but I never met him. Still, I wanted to know him because losing him left a large gap in our family: my grandmother became a widow in her early 20s, and my mother was left fatherless. I witnessed my mother’s enduring grief of never knowing him.

I relished every sentence of his letters. I would lay them out and invite my mother to read them as well, but she would just walk by and say that it was too hard.

I read them with deep curiosity, always imagining what he looked like and where he was in the battlefields of Europe. Through his letters, I found he was a very caring, thoughtful, and religious person.

“Pray for this war to end very soon,” he wrote in one letter. “If you do any more praying than I do, you are doing plenty. I have almost worn out one prayer book.”

He also had a romantic side and showed his true love for my grandmother.

“I wish to tell you that I love you with all my heart and that there will never be anyone [to] make me feel different.”He included a flattened flower in the letter around their wedding anniversary and said he was thinking about their wedding day four years ago and that he imagined all the hugging and kissing when he got home.

I smiled when I read, “You can look in a mirror and kiss yourself and that will be for me.”

He talked about being homesick and how he missed his son, 3-year-old Tommy.

“I hope Tommy [doesn’t] forget what I look like before I get home. Talk about me a lot to him, I bet he wonders where I am. I can hear him say, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ ”

The letters made me feel close to him. He seemed lonely when he wrote them, thinking longingly of his babies and wife back home while he was in unspeakable environments and, on some days, had seen battle.

He wrote as if everything was OK and he wasn’t in the middle of a war in a strange land. I tried to weave those two concepts in my imagination, but it was almost impossible.

As I read his letters throughout the years, my deep connection to him grew. I always wanted to visit him at his burial place in the Lorraine American Cemetery in France. I consider burial sites sacred since they are the final, tangible resting place of our physical selves.

Grandpa never got to physically come home, so I wanted to go to him. That trip came in 2025.

The year prior, I immersed myself in researching the 80th Division and the 317th Infantry unit, where he was assigned. I used the 80th Division Veterans Association website to review unit histories, oral histories, and morning and after-action reports to trace his last days and weeks and possibly even the location where he was killed. It was a profound journey of discovery.

I also found the Thanks GIs Association, which organized a two-day pilgrimage to the actual villages where my grandfather last fought. While walking on those village streets, I held against my chest a book based on a diary of a soldier who fought in my grandpa’s infantry. It held details of the fighting and what had happened in those villages. I envisioned it everywhere I looked.

I was also honored to meet two village mayors. The gratitude from them and every French person I met was palpable, even 81 years after my grandfather’s service.

I was simply blown away by the gravity of their emotion, of their thankfulness to me. I felt as if I was accepting thanks for my grandpa. And I was.

I also felt like an imposter because I certainly didn’t do anything. He was the one who fought, suffered shrapnel wounds, and ultimately died for their freedom and the betterment of the world.

It was surreal, almost spiritual, to receive that thanks on his behalf. As I stood before these people, a beautiful sense of synchronicity occurred because I was reciprocating gratitude back to them for remembering him.

I did not expect to feel so indebted to them. My loved one was taken so their lives and culture could continue.

I certainly wish he had come home, raised his two kids, and, 30 years down the road, watched his grandchildren play. I wish he lived a happy, long life with his wife. But sometimes soldiers must fight to the death for freedom.

As I traveled through those French villages, I better understood that thousands had to leave this earth in order to take down evil, and in those thankful eyes, I saw the results of the fight for their freedom. This bond that I felt between our two worlds was an unexpected gift.

My family’s world — forever changed by the ultimate sacrifice and loss of our loved one — and their world, also shaped by our sacrifice and the sacrifice of thousands, came together in a soul-stirring way that I will forever hold dear.

Now, exactly 14 years to the day, the former paratrooper will step out of a WWII-era C-47 and jump into the same drop zone where paratroopers of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 82nd Airborne fought on D‑Day.

“The fates always have an odd sense of irony in my life,” Harmon said in a press release. “Jumping on my 14th alive day, into the drop zone my 508 guys jumped, it’s surreal.”

“Eight months ago, if someone said that was possible, I would’ve laughed them out of the building,” Harmon continued. “But once it became a possibility, it was mission mode. How do we do this? What prosthetics? What padding? And then it was off to the races.”

For Harmon, the road — or sky — back to static-line parachuting has been a long time coming.

Enlisting in the Army just a couple months out of high school, the teen was soon patrolling in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, as a machine-gun ammo bearer with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, as part of Task Force Fury.

According to Harmon, the day began “as a routine patrol and key leader engagement with village elders about a mile and a half from their strongpoint.”

Around mid-afternoon, as the maneuver element began moving into the village, Harmon and his gunner set up the support‑by‑fire position, according to the release.

As Harmon was checking his angles, he moved alongside a low wall and berm, where his machine gun was positioned.

“And that’s when I stepped on it,” says Harmon. “It was a total brownout. I kept trying to stand up. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t until I looked down and saw my [tibia and fibula] sticking out.”

A cloud of dust and debris enveloped the seriously wounded paratrooper. To his horror, just mere seconds later, fellow soldier Pfc. Brandon Goodine stepped on a second device close to Harmon.

As medics worked to save both soldiers, they triggered a third IED.

“They carried him right over me,” Harmon said. “And then the stretcher team stepped on another plate. It was … it was bad. It killed Brandon instantly.”

His unit suffered 10 to 12 casualties that day, with Harmon, despite his grievous wounds and severe blood loss, conscious throughout the whole evacuation.

“It was like something out of Apocalypse Now. Just a pile of guys in the Black Hawk,” he recalled.

“The last thing I remember was the American flag on the ceiling as they pushed me into the surgical unit,” he said in the release.

After undergoing an emergency surgery in Afghanistan and then Germany, Harmon was eventually flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where doctors amputated his left leg above the knee. His right leg, according to the release, was already gone.

From that day in June, Harmon was thrust into a new mission.

While recovering at Walter Reed, another double below‑knee amputee came round to his bedside.

“He lifted his pant leg and said, ‘It doesn’t end here.’ From that moment on, I wanted to be like him,” said Harmon.

Returning to active duty through the Army’s Continuation on Active-Duty program, Harmon — who became the first double above‑knee amputee to return to active orders in the 82nd Airborne Division — served as the XVIII Airborne Corps liaison to help wounded soldiers and their families navigate similar situations as his.

Harmon served as a liaison until 2020, after which he left the Army to pursue higher education.

His Army career was seemingly finished — that is, until Dominic Mancuso, a fellow combat infantryman, came calling.

“Would you want to jump into Normandy?” he asked.

In 2025, Ramon Alvarez, an active duty first sergeant stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, had begun actively recruiting veteran paratroopers to take part in the ceremonies surrounding the 82nd anniversary of the Normandy invasion.

Alvarez, who had previously served with Mancuso in Afghanistan, is the co-founder of the WBS Charity Foundation, “a 501C3 nonprofit organization that channels collective generosity toward small, community-based nonprofits serving veterans,” according to the release.

From there, Harmon connected with the Liberty Jump Team, a commemorative parachute organization that “preserves airborne history by performing WWII‑style static‑line jumps at historic sites and memorial events,” per the release.

Nearly 14 years after jump school, Harmon began relearning the mechanics of parachuting — this time on specialized short prosthetic legs.

During his first jump this past March, something akin to catharsis occurred.

“I grabbed the door and thought, ‘This is so cool.’” he said in the release. “When I landed and stood up, I just broke down crying. I couldn’t believe I walked away unscathed.”

According to the release, Harmon is believed to be the first double above‑knee amputee to complete a static‑line parachute jump. He has already completed three jumps with his prosthetics, bringing his total to 10.

Harmon’s wife, an active-duty soldier herself, is encouraging him to keep going.

“As soon as my wife saw how insanely happy it made me, she said, ‘Yeah, you need to do this.’ And after I came back from BAR [basic airborne refresher], she told me, ‘You need to keep doing this. I haven’t seen you this happy in years.’”

On June 7, Harmon will jump into La Fière at Sainte‑Mère‑Église carrying Goodine’s necklace — lent to him by the soldier’s daughter — as well as some of his grandfather’s ashes and his original Army ID card. His grandfather, a Korean‑era infantryman, died recently, according to the release.

“I’ll be jumping with all my guys,” Harmon said. “Every paratrooper who came before me.”

For the former paratrooper, the jump into Normandy is more than sacred history, however.

“If I can use what I’m doing to help my guys so they’re not hurting themselves, I’ll do that for the rest of my life,” he said. “I want young paratroopers to know you can go into battle, get hurt, and life is not over. You can keep doing incredible things.”

“Stay airborne,” Harmon concluded. “It’s the greatest place on Earth.”

In a letter shared with Reuters by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, U.S. Central Command said it had “received multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater.”

The message, sent on April 14, offered no further specifics, but CENTCOM’s area of responsibility includes the Gulf, where U.S. forces are facing off against the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz.

The disclosure was the first official confirmation that U.S. forces had been targeted in an active war zone, Wyden and a bipartisan group of legislators said in a letter sent on Thursday to the Pentagon.

“Commercial location data can be used to identify where U.S. troops congregate and their pattern of life, which can be exploited by adversaries to target attacks such as missiles, drones, and roadside bombs, as well as for counterintelligence purposes,” the letter warned.

Wyden said in a statement that it was time to “start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat.”

The Pentagon did not return messages seeking comment. The lawmakers said in their letter that their efforts to obtain more information from military officials about the reported targeting had been unsuccessful.

LOCATION DATA TRADE FUELS PRIVACY CONCERNS

Location data is widely used in digital advertising, which is a key source of revenue for many tech companies. Such data is typically collected from smartphones or other devices by apps or service providers before being sold to data brokers who collate and resell the data, sometimes via complex networks of intermediaries.

Although the threat to privacy inherent in selling the details of people’s day-to-day movements on the open market has long been a matter of public discussion, its potential as a national security risk has recently drawn concern as well.

As far back as 2016, one U.S. defense contractor was able to leverage commercially available location data to track special operations forces from their bases in the United States to a sensitive staging post in Syria, according to an account first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.

More recently, journalists at Wired and two German news outlets drew on billions of coordinates collected by a data broker to expose the granular comings and goings of people stationed at or around 11 U.S. military and intelligence sites in Germany.

Two groups that represent digital advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Association of National Advertisers, did not return emails seeking comment.

The letter from U.S. lawmakers to the Pentagon said that, given what military officials know about the trade in location data, they should have acted faster to protect their personnel, for example by disabling the unique advertising ID attached to military-issued devices, automatically turning off location sharing on smartphones in the field and steering staff away from Google’s Chrome web browser toward more privacy-focused alternatives.

One of the letter’s cosigners was U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican who was formerly a U.S. Army Special Forces officer.

Harrigan said that browsers like Chrome “are built from the ground up to collect and share user data” and that every day they remain on government-issued devices “is another day we are handing our adversaries a weapon against our own troops.”

In a statement, Alphabet’s Google said that Chrome had “industry leading security.” The company added that it had “long advocated for stronger rules and safeguards against data brokers.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. military has also intercepted and shot down multiple Iranian drones that posed a similar threat.

The U.S. military strikes, which have not been previously reported, came during negotiations to end a three-month-old war that has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher since it began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier on Wednesday dismissed a Iranian state media report that Iran and Oman would jointly manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as part of a peace deal. Trump said the waterway would remain open.

The U.S. last carried out what it called defensive strikes against Iran on Monday, in what Iran called a violation of the countries’ fragile ceasefire. The U.S. targets included boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites that the U.S. military’s Central Command said posed a threat to U.S. forces.

The new analysis, released on Wednesday, warned that depleted inventories have “created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict. The time needed to rebuild those inventories has thus become a major concern.”

However, the authors acknowledged that the U.S. “has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the Iran war.”

U.S. Central Command said more than 12,000 targets were hit during Operation Epic Fury, which CSIS found significantly drew down America’s stockpiles of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM), as well as two vital interceptors: the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the Patriot.

The think tank, a bipartisan policy research organization, estimates that more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles were launched, far exceeding the average annual procurement of 86 over the past decade – and that replenishment could take until 2030 or 2031. It also determined that up to 290 THAAD interceptors were used, with those reserves returning to prior levels only by mid-to-late 2029.

The Pentagon has not publicly disclosed the scale of munitions expended before a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran took effect April 7, citing operational security. But Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s acting comptroller, told lawmakers earlier this month that the conflict had cost roughly $29 billion, with additional expenditures still expected.

The authors of the report argue that today’s challenge “isn’t money; it’s time.”

“It takes time to expand production capacity and to build these complex systems. Thus, there will be a window of vulnerability for several years until inventories return to their previous levels and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire,” they wrote.

“China is deeply aware that it has no recent combat experience and that it performed poorly in its last war—against Vietnam in 1979," the analysis continued. “That difference in experience may preserve deterrence until munitions inventories are restored.”

In a statement to Military Times, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly asserted that the U.S. military “has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond.”

“Even still, the president has urged our defense contractors to constantly produce more made-in-America weapons, which are the best in the world. Democrats destroyed our military, but President Trump rebuilt it. Think tank armchair quarterbacks are not read into sensitive information and have no idea what they’re talking about,” she added.

Trump recently held a meeting with executives from major defense contractors — including BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Missile Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon — to discuss expanding production capacity. The president subsequently announced that the CEOs “agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has conceded that replenishing the Pentagon’s arsenal will take “months and years,” depending on the system in question, emphasized on Wednesday that the process is already underway.

“Defense manufacturers are investing in new plants, and new manufacturing, new production lines, so that we’re getting weapons faster than ever,” Hegseth said during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

The Trump administration said in 2025 that “military service alone doesn’t exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws,” and a string of military spouses have been detained in immigration crackdowns.

Deisy Rivera Ortega was detained and placed in ICE custody, according to the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS. Army Sgt. 1st Class Jose Serrano had served in the Army for more than 27 years, including deployments to Afghanistan. In April, his wife

Though her attorney has challenged the legality of her detention in federal court, Serrano said the detention destabilized his mental health and ability to function.

“I can’t sleep even with the medication,” he said.

Ortega was later released after a U.S. senator personally contacted DHS on her behalf.

Military family advocates, immigration attorneys and lawmakers say the issue highlights a gap in how the armed forces measure family-related readiness stressors, which also include housing instability, childcare access, spouse employment and mental health. According to the National Military Family Association, “supporting the well-being of military families is essential to ensuring the readiness of military personnel.”

The 2021 Military Family Lifestyle Survey by Blue Star Families found that one in 10 service members belong to families that have recently immigrated into the country, and advocacy groups and military researchers estimate roughly 45,000 immigrants currently serve in the armed forces, with about 5,000 noncitizens enlisting each year. More than 760,000 noncitizens have earned U.S. citizenship through military service over the past century.

DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, already maintain programs designed to reduce immigration-related instability for military families, including Deferred Action protections and expedited immigration processing.

Another program, Military Parole in Place, can allow some undocumented spouses and relatives of service members to remain in the United States, obtain work authorization and pursue legal residency without leaving the country and triggering lengthy reentry bans. USCIS says the protections recognize “the important sacrifices made by U.S. service members, veterans, enlistees, and their families.”

Military legal assistance offices on many installations provide immigration-related guidance to service members and spouses, though military attorneys generally can’t represent families in immigration court proceedings.

But while DHS and USCIS have maintained military-family immigration protections for years, the Pentagon hasn’t publicly indicated if it is formally studying whether immigration-related stress affects force readiness.

No public Pentagon or DHS database tracks how many active duty troops have noncitizen relatives without legal status, how many military families are involved in deportation proceedings, or whether immigration stress affects readiness. The Pentagon also has no public readiness assessment that includes immigration-related family instability among tracked force stressors.

One recent case involved Annie Ramos, a 22-year-old Army spouse who was detained by immigration authorities after accompanying her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank, to Fort Polk in order to obtain a military dependent identification card shortly after the couple married. Blank said the couple had already begun pursuing legal residency options before the arrest. “We were doing everything the right way,” he told The New York Times.

Military family organizations and lawmakers say such cases reflect broader operational concerns inside military households. The National Military Family Association warned in a 2026 statement that immigration enforcement actions involving military families affect both readiness and recruiting: “How can [a service member] focus on deployment when his wife is threatened with deportation?”

Lawmakers have pressed both DHS and the Pentagon about whether immigration enforcement involving military families creates adverse consequences. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran, described forced family separation as harmful to “military morale and mission readiness,” and introduced the PROTECT Military Families Act earlier this year to curb unnecessary separations.

In letter sent to the departments of homeland security and defense, over 60 lawmakers wrote that “family well-being directly impacts Service members’ performance during deployment” and asked whether either department had studied the readiness implications of deportations involving military households.

Military Times reached out to the Pentagon, asking if the Defense Department tracks immigration-related family stress as part of readiness assessments, but didn’t receive a response before publication.

A portion of the U.S. Air Force’s budget is set aside for the purchase of aviation fuel based on a predicted fuel price and an increase in flying hours for fiscal 2027, but that cost was estimated and submitted in their budget request before the war began, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on Thursday at a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing.

“My understanding is the president’s budget submitted to us did not include any costs that were costs related to the Iran war because it had largely been prepared and submitted through this budgetary chain of command before the Iran war started,” Kaine, a committee member, said in the hearing.

At the hearing on the department’s posture related to fiscal 2027’s defense authorization request, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said that the service did account for the increased cost of flying hours in the request and estimated that cost before the market determined the true cost.

“Some years it’s more, some years it’s less. So we will adjust our dollars if we end up having to pay more per dollar for a gallon of fuel if it ends up being more than we assessed,” Wilsbach said.

Aviation fuel costs are not an issue unique to the Air Force even though it is the largest consumer across the federal government. All branches of the U.S. military utilize aviation fuel to manage and operate their own drones, helicopters and aircraft fleets.

Kaine said that aviation fuel costs have increased roughly 50% since the war started on Feb. 28 and that while writing fiscal 2027’s NDAA, the committee needs to deal with the new reality of costs on the commercial side, given its effects on the American people.

At the pump, gas prices have surged around $1.50, making the national average about $4.50 since the war commenced. Commercially, U.S. airlines fuel cost increased by 56.4%, or $3.23 billion, since February, according to the Bureau of Transportation.

Wilsbach said the force assumed a 10% increase in flying hours costs from last year in this upcoming fiscal year budget.

The force’s budget requests funding for 1.1 million flying hours, which is considered the “maximum executable level for the total force,” and allots $9.9 billion for the flying hour program, which includes aviation fuel among other maintenance and operation items.

Wilsbach did not indicate what is the assumed cost per gallon of PB, which is a Propane-Butane liquid gas blend commonly used by the Air Force for field operations.

He said that the Air Force department had long-term contracts for fuel purchases and now has storage built up, so the specifics can’t be known until that storage runs dry. Kaine pressed on whether that 10% increase is deemed sufficient considering the rise in costs.

“It’s hard to say at this point, but what I’ll tell you is this is routine for us,” Wilsbach said.

“Every year, the cost of flying hours changes from the time we budget for it to the time we execute it, and we work it out with moving money around in various accounts to cover down on the cost,” he continued.

When posed by Kaine on if the potential cost is being considered in preparation of a possible supplemental bill, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said that it depends on how long these costs stay high to determine their corresponding impact.

Meink said that in a previous hearing, Jay Hurst, who is performing the duties of Pentagon comptroller, mentioned the country is facing about a $29 billion impact, which includes some operation and maintenance fuel cost.

By the end of 2026, it is estimated that the American public will have paid over $193 billion in excess fuel costs because of the Iran war. As of today, American consumers have already paid $40 billion more for fuel.

Kaine highlighted these estimates, saying that it demonstrates the challenge families are facing now.

“I suspect as we’re looking at the military budget, we’re going to see a similar need to adjust it pretty dramatically because of fuel costs,” Kaine concluded.

Within weeks of the United States launching its bombing campaign, SpaceX executives met Pentagon officials and argued the military had been paying about $5,000 for connection per terminal while effectively using a higher tier of service worth closer to $25,000, according to two sources familiar with the matter and Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters.

The disagreement over Starlink’s use on LUCAS suicide drones — a cheap U.S. model comparable to Iran’s Shahed that can circle over a target area before diving to detonate on impact — is part of increasing tensions between SpaceX and the Pentagon over Starlink pricing in recent months, according to interviews with five people familiar with the matter and the documents.

The Pentagon, which is seeking to help Iranian citizens bypass government-imposed communications blackouts, has also been at odds with SpaceX over pricing for a plan to provide the populace direct-to-cell connections with Starlink akin to 5G service, two of the sources said.

The ongoing disputes, which have not previously been reported, underscore how the Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX is handing Musk greater leverage over a critical layer of U.S. national security – at a time when SpaceX is seeking to boost revenue ahead of an IPO next month that could be among the biggest in history.

Unlike consumer Starlink terminals available at stores including Walmart, SpaceX sells a military-specific version called Starshield to the Pentagon under a 2023 agreement. Starshield terminals can connect to both commercial Starlink satellites and a separate, more secure constellation, also called Starshield, according to a person familiar with the matter.

SpaceX argued the LUCAS drones were operating under conditions that aligned more closely with its aviation tier subscription rather than a lower priced land or mobility service. Pentagon officials argued that the $25,000 price tag — a monthly fee — was designed for aircraft, not kamikaze drones that used Starlink connection for a matter of minutes or hours, according to one of the sources.

The Pentagon, which was ramping up strikes on Iran, ultimately agreed to pay SpaceX’s proposed price increase, almost doubling the cost of each LUCAS drone. The Pentagon was initially paying about $30,000 per unit.

SpaceX didn’t respond to a comment request.

The Pentagon declined to comment on Reuters reporting that SpaceX increased its pricing, its decision to pay, or the plan to provide Iranian citizens with Starlink cell service. In a statement, a Pentagon official said the office responsible for acquiring the terminals, the Commercial Satellite Communications Office, is working to find other competitors.

“The Department of War is committed to fostering a competitive environment for commercial satellite communications,” an official said.

After the Reuters story was published, Elon Musk called it “false” without elaborating in a post on X. He added that the civilian Starlink system had been improperly used “for military purposes.” In a separate post, he said “the company” was at fault, not the Pentagon.

A spokesperson for Spektreworks, which makes the LUCAS drone, directed all questions to the Pentagon.

In a post on X, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Reuters reporting was “wrong” without providing further information. SpaceX “remains a strong and valued partner to the Department of War,” he wrote.

But no other company provides a comparable alternative to Starlink, which has become an increasingly critical tool in modern warfare since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The satellite network provides global coverage, enabling battlefield communications and precision targeting even in remote areas. SpaceX’s constellation of roughly 10,000 satellites accounts for more than 60% of those in orbit — dwarfing the constellations being built by other companies, including OneWeb and Amazon Leo.

The risks of reliance on Starlink were first thrown into sharp focus during the Ukraine war, when Musk ordered Starlink service switched off in parts of the country in 2022 as Ukrainian forces advanced on Russian positions, disrupting a key counteroffensive, Reuters previously reported. More recently, U.S. Navy tests were disrupted last summer when a global Starlink outage cut off connection to unmanned military boats, leaving them bobbing in the ocean.

SPACEX HAS U.S. GOVERNMENT ‘OVER A BARREL’

Unlike traditional defense contractors, SpaceX holds greater leverage over the Pentagon because it also has a large commercial market for Starlink, alongside its rocket launch and artificial intelligence businesses, said Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank. SpaceX generates about 20% of its total revenue from the U.S. government, according to an SEC filing.

SpaceX “certainly has the U.S. government over the barrel,” Swope said.

At the outset of the Iran war, Starlink was already a core part of U.S. military operations. In testing and early deployments, it supported a range of systems, from aerial attack drones such as the LUCAS to unmanned surface vessels used for maritime surveillance and strike missions. When the U.S. launched its bombing campaign, Starshield terminals were being used across more than a dozen drone systems, according to a source familiar with the matter.

But tensions between the Pentagon and SpaceX emerged quickly after the U.S. launched its February 28 assault on Iran. On March 1, SpaceX chief Elon Musk responded on X to a user’s post featuring an image of the LUCAS drone that said it “appears to have an integrated Starlink” terminal.

“It is a violation of commercial Starlink terms of service to use the terminal for weapon systems. This applies to all users and is shut down when discovered,” Musk posted. “There is a separate network called Starshield, which is operated by the US government.”

The Pentagon official, in a statement to Reuters, denied any violation of its agreement with SpaceX.

In the days that followed, SpaceX executives met Pentagon officials and argued the military was underpaying for the service, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Although the Pentagon initially agreed to the higher fee for satellite Wi-Fi connections used by attack drones, senior officials including Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg remained uneasy about the arrangement, one of the sources said. Pentagon officials, during an April ceasefire, met to revisit the pricing with Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a retired four-star Air Force general who now leads SpaceX’s defense business.

Still, the Pentagon is currently considering an additional purchase of more than 3,500 Starshield terminal subscriptions, including 100 with the higher-priced aviation tier, according to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters. The deal could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue for SpaceX, though Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been finalized, or what price is being discussed.

SPACEX PRICES IRK PENTAGON

Starlink has also proved crucial to other operations. After Iran cracked down on protests in January, killing thousands of people, the Trump administration smuggled in more than 6,000 Starlink terminals to provide internet access to citizens, the Wall Street Journal previously reported.

As the war intensified, however, Iranian authorities confiscated the terminals and deployed jamming devices across major cities to disrupt connections, according to a source familiar with the matter. Within a week of the conflict beginning, Pentagon officials began discussions with SpaceX about deploying direct-to-cell service that could bypass those disruptions, two people familiar with the matter said. The capability, similar to a 5G connection, would allow users to connect without terminals on the ground.

SpaceX, which generated $11.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2025, proposed charging as much as $500 million to launch the capability, along with a $100 million monthly fee to operate it, according to one of the people and Pentagon documents - prompting alarm from defense officials over the price.

Reuters could not determine whether an agreement has been reached.

The Harry Lew and Danny Chen Military Justice Reform Act, introduced today by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., is named for Chu’s nephew, Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, and Chen, a 19-year-old Army private who also died by suicide in 2011 after racial harassment and hazing.

The bill would order the Joint Service Committee on Military Justice to conduct a report to Congress on a change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice on whether hazing should be a standalone crime.

Currently, hazing offenses are charged under different articles of the UMCJ, such as Cruelty and Maltreatment (Article 93), intended to protect military subordinates from abuses of authority by their superiors; or Assault (Article 128).

A statement from the family of Chen, released by Chu’s office, expresses a desire to “carry on his legacy” by fighting military hazing.

“Our family does not want anyone to suffer the way Danny did,” the statement continues. “What was done to Danny and Lance Corporal Harry Lew was brutal and destructive. Danny will never return home to us and we do not want any other family to experience such senseless death from hazing.”

An investigation found the mistreatment leading to Chen’s suicide included racial slurs and being made to crawl over 100 meters of gravel while other soldiers threw rocks at him.

Lew was subjected to three-and-a-half hours of “corrective training” after he was found to have fallen asleep on post while on guard duty in Afghanistan. Marines also poured the contents of a sandbag into his face and mouth and battered him with kicks and punches.

He took his life with his service weapon shortly thereafter.

The new bill, which is cosponsored by Reps. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and has a Senate companion bill introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., comes seven months after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called for rougher training by drill instructors at service boot camps.

Hegseth said the Pentagon would conduct a review of the military definitions of hazing and bullying to ensure they weren’t overly broad and said he’d allow boot camp trainers to “put hands on recruits” and “swear.”

Hazing, bullying reports up as Hegseth pushes for rougher training

“Of course, you can’t do, like, nasty bullying and hazing,” Hegseth told an auditorium of generals and admirals in Quantico, Va. last September. ”We’re talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They’ve been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs. No more. Setting, achieving and maintaining high standards is what you all do. And if that makes me toxic, then so be it.”

In an exclusive interview with Military Times, Chu said she’d renewed her longtime efforts to fight military hazing after Hegseth’s speech.

“So far, the DoD has not made official changes to the definition of bullying, hazing, or harassment, but I am alarmed that he would bring back this idea that you should physically punish people and torture them, in essence, in order to make them soldiers,” Chu said. “So that is what has prompted my action in terms of introducing this bill.”

Chu led a group of 28 congressional Democrats in writing a letter of concern to Hegseth about his comments last year.

A response to the letter from Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata expanded on Hegseth’s comments, telling lawmakers that “by providing definitions that focus on the egregious misconduct described in your letter, leaders will be empowered to more easily address inappropriate conduct that does not constitute hazing or bullying while focusing resources on preventing and addressing incidents of hazing and bullying.”

Chu said that she wasn’t satisfied with the response.

“Narrowing the definition of military hazing, leading to a decrease in the number of unsubstantiated complaints, that does not make sense,” she said.

It’s not entirely clear what it would take to criminalize hazing under the UCMJ, particularly because the word can span such a broad range of behaviors, from bullying and verbal harassment to physical assault. Chu said the study, which is required to make a change to the military’s criminal code, would help to address this and create parameters for addressing hazing at different levels.

“I strongly believe that respect, professionalism, and accountability make our military stronger, and abuse and humiliation do not, and that service members perform best when they know they will be treated with dignity and protected from abuse, abuse by their peers and leaders,” Chu said.

In his Memorial Day remarks at Arlington National Cemetery, the Commander in Chief lauded “our guardian angels,” describing them as the vital line of defense between “liberty and tyranny... civilization and barbarism... good and evil.”

“We honor those who fell so that our Republic might stand, those who died so that our nation could live, those who gave up their sacred light on earth so that the sublime light of American freedom would shine forever and ever,” Trump told the crowd, which included many Gold Star families. “This Memorial Day we salute them, we exalt them, and we thank them for all that we have, for all that they gave. They gave everything.”

More than 400,000 veterans and their dependents rest within the cemetery’s 639 acres, representing generations of military service from the Revolutionary War to the present day.

Trump paid an emphatic tribute to the 13 service members killed in the ongoing conflict with Iran. Prior to reaffirming his pledge that “the number one state sponsor of terror will never have a nuclear weapon,” he offered a special acknowledgement to the family of Maj. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington, who died in a KC-135 crash in western Iraq in March.

“Ariana’s selfless gift will not be in vain. Our debt to you is everlasting. And it’s always going to end in victory,” Trump declared, drawing a surge of applause.

Washington and Tehran remain locked in high-stakes peace negotiations to end the fighting that began on Feb. 28. But tensions rose on Monday when the United States conducted “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran. The Islamic Republic’s Foreign Ministry later accused the U.S. of violating the fragile ceasefire, warning that the latest round of strikes risked undermining diplomatic efforts between the two sides.

Trump, at Arlington, also recounted the service of Lt. Col. Keith Ware, a Medal of Honor recipient who served in both World War II and Vietnam and “led from the front”; Maj. Charles Kelly, an Army helicopter pilot who “refused to withdraw” until he had loaded the wounded aboard in Vietnam; and Sgt. 1st Class Matthew McClintock, “a very special Green Beret” awarded the Silver Star for his final act of valor in Afghanistan.

Senior Master Sgt. Harry Miller, a WWII veteran, was in attendance and received a standing ovation during the observance. He lost 42 men from his unit during the Battle of the Bulge.

“At 15, Harry Miller lied about his age to enlist and was soon fighting to stop the SS Panzer Divisions as part of the famed 740th tank battalion — the daredevils, they were called — of which he is among the last surviving members at 97 years old," the president said, waving and pumping his fist toward Miller. “Sgt. Miller, it is a true honor to have you with us.”

The president’s Memorial Day address was preceded by remarks from Vance, a Marine Corps veteran, who delivered a twofold appeal to the American public.

“The first is that we be the very best version of ourselves in honor of those who gave everything that this nation might be worthy,” Vance said. “Second, we always remember that every moment that we’re able to enjoy with our loved ones — everything that gives our life and our nation meaning and purpose — was given to us often by total strangers who laid down their lives that this might be the best nation in the history of the world.”

He concluded: “To our Gold Star families, I hope you know that I will never forget. I’ll never forget your loved ones; that the good life that I have and that my family have is fundamentally because you paid a debt that I can never repay.”

“Hey, get outta that chair,” barked the 101-year-old Don Graves. “Sitting in that chair with your arms folded.”

“I’m freezing!” rejoined William “Billy” Byrd, now 100.

“He looks like he’s been through battle right now,” Graves continued.

The two Marines, part of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division that was famously tasked with capturing Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, had been flown into Washington, D.C., to serve as Honorary Grand Marshals for the National Memorial Day Parade on Monday.

Time was superfluous to the men who commenced their ribbing mere seconds upon spotting one another.

Iwo Jima veterans Billy Byrd (100) and Don Graves (101) flew to Washington, D.C., where they will serve as Honorary Grand Marshals for the National Memorial Day Parade. 🇺🇸

The first thing they did when they saw each other? Started talking trash.

Some things never change. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/K2tOFvxC6o

— 𝕃𝕚𝕖𝕦𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕟𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕝 ℙ 🪖 (@TheLtColUSMC) May 24, 2026

Graves, a native of Detroit, Michigan, quit high school and joined the Marine Corps in 1942 at the age of 17.

“It was always the Marine Corps,” he told photographer D. Clarke Evans in 2018. “My dad was in the Corps.”

Graves noted that he was the only flame thrower in the 2nd Battalion to survive the battle.

“We had 335 Marines going in; 18 came off,” said Graves, adding the sobering statistic.

He was among the third wave of Marines that came ashore on Iwo Jima on Feb. 19, 1945, equipped with a 72-pound flamethrower strapped to his back and a .45-caliber pistol on his hip.

“On the beach, we knew this wasn’t going to be easy; we couldn’t move, we couldn’t get up. Guys were getting killed. Every time they’d go over the top, they’d drop,” Graves said. “I was on the beach at least two hours. It took us three days to go 540 feet to Suribachi — inch by inch, foot by foot, shell hole by shell hole.”

Graves, who after the war went into the ministry, told Evans that he found God in the volcanic sands out in the Pacific.

“I lay on the beach at Iwo. Nowhere to go, I saw what was happening. I was scared. I put my face in the sand and said, ‘God I don’t know much about you, but if you can do for me what people tell me you can, I will serve you the rest of my life.’”

101-year-old World War II veteran Don Graves — the last surviving flamethrower operator from his battalion, which fought on Iwo Jima — sings “God Bless America” at the National Memorial Day Parade. pic.twitter.com/8dpTMo7u9e

— Freedom 250 (@Freedom250) May 25, 2026

Byrd, a Mississippi native, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943 at the age of 18. One of seven children to parents of sharecroppers, Byrd hoped to expand his horizons by joining the Corps.

Byrd, like Graves, was just 19 years old when he found himself fighting on Iwo Jima.

“I was right on the lines,” Byrd told the Clarion Ledger in 2015. “I was so lucky.”

“The only thing we thought about was going home,” Byrd recalled to a local Mississippi outlet in 2019. “And after I got back home a couple of years, I regretted that I didn’t get their addresses and phone numbers.”

And while it took nearly a century to connect, the Marine was on hand Monday to watch as Graves belted out “God Bless America” at the National Memorial Day Parade.

One can only imagine the ribbing after that.

These efforts include better assessment of canine traumatic brain injury, protecting dogs against toxic chemicals, performing transfusions on bleeding dogs and even finding common medical treatments for both humans and dogs. The new initiatives also come amid reports of poor health conditions for dogs in military base kennels.

The latest round of DoD Small Business Innovation Research solicitations included four canine health projects. Three came from the Defense Health Agency and the fourth from DARPA. The deadline for all of them is June 3.

One DHA solicitation addresses widespread TBI among military dogs who perform tasks such as detecting explosives or guarding bases.

“TBI in the MWD [military working dog] carries an extremely high mortality rate with a prehospital mortality of over 40% for severe TBI cases,” DHA said. “It is estimated that 25% to 40% of all MWD trauma cases are accompanied by TBI, but there is limited data concerning the short- and long-term effects of TBI on the performance and health of the MWD.”

DHA wants to take advantage of previous research into TBI on “rodents, canines, or other large animal models that could be repurposed for the detection and treatment of TBI specifically in MWDs.” The end goal is to develop products to treat TBI that can be certified by the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Another DHA project seeks shelf-stable whole blood products for injured dogs.

“Uncontrolled hemorrhage following traumatic injury accounts for over 45% of all MWD battlefield deaths,” the agency said.

The goal is to develop a “stable canine whole blood product and/or substitute (i.e. hemoglobin or polymer oxygen carriers),” with a shelf life of more than three years, which can also survive harsh temperatures in the field.

Companies should indicate how their solutions would be effective “for the acute phase of care through 72 hours for hemorrhage/hemorrhagic shock,” the solicitation reads.

The third DHA initiative seeks ways of decontaminating military dogs who have been exposed to toxic industrial chemicals and materials.

“Although there are useful treatment options for external decontamination, there are few treatment options for toxic exposures that have been absorbed into the body of the MWD,” DHA noted.

Potential solutions include kits “containing indicators or detectors of TIC/TIM exposure with easily identifiable injectable treatments for the identified contaminant (indicator/detector) and/or hemoperfusion systems and filters that can be used to remove contaminants from the blood (systemic).”

DARPA’s “Broadening Availability of Regimens for K-9s” — otherwise known as BARK — seeks medical treatments that work on both dogs and humans.

“Medical technologies that are interoperable and compatible across humans and dogs can address unmet needs of valuable MWDs while lessening the burden on medics, logisticians, and other contributors to force health protection,” the DARPA solicitation stated.

As examples, DARPA listed six areas of potential multispecies medicine. These include filters to remove antigens from plasma that the patient’s body would reject, a universal synthetic plasma for transfusions and sensors to monitor temperature, blood pressure and other physiological readings.

DARPA also envisions splints, tourniquets and other medical devices that can be applied to people and canines.

Other possibilities include common autoinjectors and other ways to deliver medicine, and common personal protective gear to shield dogs and humans from chemical weapons.

All four solicitations suggest that these solutions would benefit veterinary care in the civilian world. They also emphasize that testing will use simulated — rather than real — dogs.

The silence then greeted the U.S. Army Transport ship Joseph V. Connolly as she sailed up the Narrows past the Statue of Liberty and eased into the berth at Pier 21 off W. 21st on Manhattan’s West Side on Oct. 26, 1947.

The converted Liberty ship carried a cargo of 6,248 caskets bearing the remains of troops from the European theater of World War II, including many who fell in the Battle of the Bulge.

The Connolly was the first ship to arrive in the states under the “Return of the Dead” program of the American Graves Registration Service, which conducted the largest search and recovery effort of war dead ever attempted between 1945 and 1951, resulting in the identification of more than 280,000 fallen Americans.

As a band played Chopin’s funeral march, a casket from the Connolly chosen at random was lowered onto a caisson which was escorted, to muffled drum beats, by 6,000 marchers from the military services up Fifth Avenue and then to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, where dignitaries and military chaplains made remarks.

A crowd estimated at 400,000 turned out to mark the passage of the caisson. The mood stood in stark contrast to the boisterous, ticker tape parades that preceded the arrival of the Connolly for troops returning in victory from Europe and the Pacific.

The flag-draped casket on the caisson demanded respect and sorrow, but one of the only breaks in the crowd’s silence was completely understandable, the New York Times reported.

Along Fifth Ave., a distraught woman shouted, “Johnny, my Johnny, where is my boy?” The woman followed the parade to Central Park, the Times reported, and again shouted, “Johnny, where is my boy?”

The ceremonies in Central Park ended with a benediction from Navy Capt. Frank Hamilton, the Protestant chaplain for the Third Naval District.

“Almighty God, our Father, before Thee is a chosen child of the American people, chosen in death, to represent all our children,” Hamilton stated.

All 6,248 caskets aboard the Connolly arrived in New York with the approval of next of kin who signed “Quartermaster’s General Form 345” on the final disposition of the remains.

The form cautioned that “the next of kin should familiarize himself with the contents of the pamphlet ‘Disposition of World War II Armed Forces Dead’ before filling out this form.”

Then came the choice: the next of kin could choose for the remains “to be interred on a permanent American military cemetery overseas,” Form 345 said, or “be returned to the United States.”

If the U.S. was the choice, the government would deliver the remains to the nearest train station or to the home of the next of kin by military hearse. In addition, the government would pay up to $600 for a private funeral.

In all, a total of more than 171,000 remains were returned to the U.S., while the fallen’s next of kin chose to have more than 110,000 deceased remain overseas to eventually be interred at one of the 26 military cemeteries magnificently maintained worldwide by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

In statements after the war, President Harry S. Truman said he had been urged by unnamed allied countries to allow for the burial of American war dead in their cemeteries — if the families agreed — to honor permanently the troops who liberated their countries.

In a May 13, 1947, statement “Concerning Final Burial of the Dead of World War II,” Truman sought to ease the concerns of the families that their loved ones might not be treated with respect overseas.

“I feel sure, however, that if they could see for themselves the care which is devoted to the graves of those who died in the First World War, and to the temporary cemeteries in which their own dead lie buried today, many of the next of kin would prefer that their loved ones should rest forever in the countries where they fell,” Truman said.

“I believe, therefore, that our government should make possible a pilgrimage to the permanent cemeteries overseas” for the families “to give reassurance of the perpetual care which our country will devote to the resting places of our honored dead.”

The proposal, however, was deemed too expensive and was never implemented.

One of the overseas cemeteries is located near the Dutch town of Margraten, whose citizens have adopted the graves of each of the 8,200-plus American troops buried at the nearby Netherlands American Cemetery.

Operation Market Garden, which was fought across the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and marked the largest airborne operation of World War II, began on Sept. 17, 1944, about 60 miles northwest of Margraten.

Since 1945, ceremonies have been held at the cemetery on the Sunday before Memorial Day. The tradition began when Dutch teenager Frieda van Schaik wrote a letter to the U.S. military pleading for the remains of American soldiers to stay at the cemetery.

She and other citizens of Margraten made a promise to American military families.

“Leave your boys with us,” Schaik wrote. “We will watch over them like our own, forever.”

The May 13 report, “U.S. Aircraft Combat Losses in Operation Epic Fury: Considerations for Congress,” draws on news accounts and statements by the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command to compile the list.

The CRS, the nonpartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, works from open sources and has no access to classified damage assessments.

The CRS authors note their count “may remain subject to revision due to multiple factors, which may include classification, ongoing combat activity, and attribution.”

The first losses came March 1-2, when a Kuwaiti Air Force F/A-18 Hornet mistakenly shot down three F-15E Strike Eagles over Kuwait. All six aircrew ejected and were recovered. The shoot-down occurred during active combat that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones, CENTCOM said.

A fourth F-15E was shot down over Iran on April 3, with both crew members recovered in separate search-and-rescue operations.

A KC-135 Stratotanker went down over western Iraq on March 12 during a refueling sortie, killing all six aircrew. The crew members are the only fatalities on the CRS list. The loss was not the result of hostile or friendly fire, CENTCOM said. A second KC-135 involved in the same incident landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

The toll on the tanker fleet grew two days later, when Iranian missiles and drones struck Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, damaging five more KC-135s on the ground and bringing total tanker losses to seven.

An F-35A Lightning II took Iranian ground fire over Iran on March 19 and returned to base.

Iran hit Prince Sultan again on March 27, damaging an E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control aircraft. A May 7 Washington Post report cited by CRS said the E-3 had been parked on an unprotected taxiway.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II went down April 3 after taking enemy fire during a search-and-rescue mission. The pilot ejected and was recovered.

Two days later, U.S. forces blew up two MC-130J Commando II special operations aircraft on the ground in Iran during the broader rescue effort for the downed F-15E weapon systems officer, after the transports couldn’t fly out of a forward airstrip. All aircrew were evacuated. An HH-60W Jolly Green II combat search-and-rescue helicopter took small-arms fire during the same mission.

Drones, meanwhile, took the heaviest hit, accounting for 25 of the 42 losses. The list includes 24 MQ-9 Reapers and one MQ-4C Triton lost in a mishap reported April 14.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach told the House Armed Services Committee on May 20 that the Reaper had been the campaign’s standout platform despite the losses.

“Perhaps maybe the most valuable player was unmanned,” Wilsbach said. “No other platform is even close to the MQ-9.”

Notable gaps and omissions

Multiple outlets reported the E-3 was not just damaged but destroyed. Photos of tail 81-0005 published days after the March 27 strike showed the rear fuselage burned through, with debris scattered around the airframe.

The Jerusalem Post and Air & Space Forces Magazine both called the airframe a write-off. The Air Force operated only 16 E-3s before the war began, six of them deployed to Prince Sultan.

The HH-60W count is also likely low. At his April 6 news conference, Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described two helicopters in the rescue flight taking fire, with a crew member on the trailing aircraft suffering a minor injury. The Aviationist noted the account suggests both airframes were hit, not one.

The report does not list any AH/MH-6 Little Birds. Between two and four Little Birds operated by the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment were intentionally destroyed at the same Iranian airstrip where the two MC-130Js were demolished in place, The War Zone reported in early April, and photos geolocated by open-source analysts showed the burned-out helicopters next to the C-130 wreckage.

The 160th SOAR operates under U.S. Special Operations Command, and the absence of a DoD or CENTCOM statement on the Little Birds may explain why none appear in the CRS list.

Cost of war continues to climb

Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on May 12 that the cost of operations in Iran has risen to $29 billion, up from the $25 billion figure he provided April 29.

“So, at the time of testimony from the ask, it was $25 billion, but the joint staff team and the comptroller team are constantly looking at that estimate, and so now we think it’s closer to $29 [billion],” Hurst told Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif.

Hurst blamed the increase on “updated repair and replacement of equipment costs and also just general operational costs keep people in theater.”

The figure does not include the cost of repairing damaged air bases and other U.S. installations in the region.

Now, the upcoming film “Pressure,” adapted from writer David Haig’s 2014 play of the same name, is set to relieve those angst-filled 72 hours leading up to D-Day.

The film stars Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces Dwight D. Eisenhower and Andrew Scott (“Fleabag”) as Group Captain James Stagg, the chief meteorologist who predicted the storms over Western Europe in the days leading up to the invasion.

Premiering in theaters on May 29, “Pressure” depicts this true yet stranger-than-fiction story of Stagg’s unenviable task of predicting the English Channel’s notoriously fickle weather.

The lanky Brit, later described by his son a “dour irascible Scot,” alongside a team of forecasters from the Royal Navy, British Meteorological Office and U.S. Strategic and Tactical Air Force, knew the Allies only had a small window — nine days in May and June — that were suitable for the invasion.

“The days needed to be long for maximum air power usage; a near-full moon was needed to help guide ships and airborne troops; and the tides had to be strong enough to expose beach obstacles at low tide and float supply-filled landing vehicles far onto the beach during high tide,” according to a DoD breakdown of D-Day. “H-Hour was also crucial in that it relied on those tides to be rising at that time. There also had to be an hour of daylight just beforehand for bombardment accuracy.”

Eisenhower set the date for the invasion to be June 5, but in the wee hours of June 4, 1944, Stagg recommended halting the 7,000 naval vessels — including battleships, destroyers, minesweepers, escorts and assault craft — carrying more than 160,000 troops.

Despite his recommendation, the weatherman was certain only in his uncertainty, writing in his diary on June 4, 1944, “I am now getting rather stunned — it is all a nightmare.”

“He was just greatly interested and brilliant at his job,” Scott told Military Times. “He wasn’t looking, number one, for people to like him in the war room. That wasn’t really his world. He was looking to do the right thing. He had to deliver this forecast that he knew he was capable of delivering.”

The aptly titled “Pressure” depicts an anguished Eisenhower on the eve of the invasion, with the weight of the free world and the largest, most dangerous seaborne invasion in history all hinging on a weather report.

“We tend to hear about or learn about the most dramatic or the most swashbuckling kind of adventure stories. … I think there’s something quietly heroic about a guy like Stagg, who’s got to leave his pregnant wife, he’s got to go to work, he’s got to save the world [and then go] home again as though nothing happened,” Anthony Maras, who directed and co-wrote the script with Haig, told Military Times.

“Stagg’s a bit like an intellectual superhero in a way in that he has the courage to stand by his convictions. He has the courage to tell people who are superior to him — who are in charge of the biggest military machine in the world — what they do not want to hear, but what they need to hear," Maras added. “I found [that] fascinating — that one decision can change history. You’ve got these really brilliant people — whether they be scientists, generals or officers — who are really capable, who have very different ideas about what to do. And as the clock ticks down for launching or not launching the biggest invasion in history, seeing these men and women go crazy in indecision, not knowing what to do, is inherently dramatic.”

Stagg’s intel proved correct and a storm broke over the English Channel on June 5. However, further postponement would have meant a two-week delay. Stagg believed there would be a small break in the storm and, just before dawn 24 hours prior, Eisenhower made the decision to go on June 6.

If the titanic invasion wasn’t enough to fray Eisenhower’s nerves, just six weeks prior, on April 27–28, Exercise Tiger, the dress rehearsal for Operation Overlord, had gone hideously awry.

Taking place in Slapton Sands, England, friendly fire and German E-boats claimed the lives of more than 1,000 men and resulted in the worst loss of life for American troops since the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

In fact, five times more men died at Slapton Sands than were killed storming Utah Beach on D-Day. As a result of the rehearsal, however, the Allies learned valuable, though grim, lessons that would be essential to the success of the invasion.

Just several weeks after the operation Stagg noted in a memo to Eisenhower that had the Allies postponed to later that June, they would have encountered the worst weather in the English Channel in two decades.

“I thank the Gods of War we went when we did,” Eisenhower wrote back.

Staff Sgt. Johnny “Joey” Jones, a Fox News contributor, reenlisted in the Corps on Wednesday in a ceremony held by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon Hall of Heroes, according to the Department of Defense.

“A lot of work went into saying, ‘Hey, this is the kind of American we want back in uniform,’” Hegseth said in the ceremony. “Not just because of what he did and what he’s done in uniform but because of how he represents the fighting men and women of our country.”

Jones enlisted in 2005 as a radio technician before deploying to Iraq in 2007 as a machine gunner, per a Pentagon release. He then requested to change his MOS to Explosive Ordnance Disposal and later deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, according to the Sentinels of Freedom, a veterans scholarship and support program that Jones joined in 2012.

During his time in Afghanistan, Jones disabled over 85 improvised explosive devices. In August 2010, however, Jones stepped on an IED, resulting in the loss of both legs above the knee.

Starting in 2019, Jones became a Fox contributor “wingman” for Hegseth and spoke on military analysis and veterans’ services.

“How Joey talks about [service] on television [is] so that the American people understand it and connect to it in a visceral way,” Hegseth said at the ceremony. “You could talk about it academically, you could talk about it from a detached perspective or you can talk about having lived it the way he has.”

In his remarks at the ceremony, Hegseth highlighted last year’s Marine Corps record recruiting numbers, saying he hopes Jones’ reenlistment motivates younger Americans to join the military.

Jones said during the ceremony that he had more to give after medically retiring 14 years ago. He called it a “debt,” highlighting that he was able to be on TV while other service members continued to give to the country, “shy of their life and maybe a couple legs,” he said.

“The last job I had in uniform, my job was to get better. It was to heal. It’s a very selfish thing,” Jones said. “The Marine Corps paid me to get better, and then I retired, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was unfinished business.”

Jones said he strives to change the perspective that society has of the men and women who got injured in combat and saw the worst of war. He said there’s more to give — if not through reenlisting, then by serving the community.

He remembers former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos telling him, “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” not knowing that he would “cash that check” almost 20 years later.

“If there’s an opportunity for me to serve, there’s no reason why a no-legged 40-year-old staff sergeant [should not] be able to put the uniform on, other than these men believed it,” Jones said. “The goal here is to open that door for anyone else that has something left to give.”

Garrett Smith, Reveal’s chief executive officer, explained that the “milestone represents years of partnership” needed to develop the technology.

“Identifi ensures that biometric identification and verification remain accessible, secure and mission-ready across the spectrum of operations,” he said.

The Identifi tool is an application programmed on a mobile device that allows operators to check and review fingerprints, analyze faces and voices, and scan irises in the field. They can upload or cross reference the information with a Defense Department database known as the Automated Biometric Identification System, or ABIS, to identify individuals or enemy combatants.

In an email to Military Times, McKenna Miller, the company’s communication director, explained that Identifi was originally developed by the company DFL Technology. DFL won a contract from Special Operations Forces Works, or SOFWERX, a non-profit that partners with SOCOM to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors for technological solutions.

Using input from SOCOM subject matter experts, the company built a prototype for Identifi. In 2023, they entered it into SOCOM’s Tactical Biometric Event, which was an open competition for industry with a technical and operational evaluation, and won. A year later, Reveal acquired DFL, and they have been working on the project together ever since.

Although using biometric data for identification is nothing new, the way in which the information is digitally collected and stored is.

Smith told Axios that when he deployed to Afghanistan with the Marine Corps, they used decades-old technology, so the hope is the Marines and Army will also adopt Reveal’s biometric tool. He called SOCOM the “trendsetter” for the U.S. military and intelligence communities.

Miller declined to disclose the value of SOCOM’s Identifi contract. But, according to a search of USA Spending, since 2019 Reveal has been awarded some 15 contracts totaling more than $13 million from the DoD, General Services Administration and Small Business Administration.

Since launching in 2018, Reveal said it has increased its revenue tenfold year over year. Last July, it announced that it had raised some $30 million in funding and with that investment, it has doubled its workforce to include more than a hundred employees.

According to Reveal’s announcement, SOCOM has already begun fielding the Identifi tool and it’s planning for broader deployment throughout the fiscal year.