The Space Development Agency selected L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space Corporation for the delivery of a total of 36 space vehicles across four orbital planes, with an expected available launch by the end of 2028, according to a Monday release.

The 36 Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3, or AMDT3, space vehicles will be made up of 18 missile warning and tracking variants and 18 missile defense variants, per the statement, as part of the Tracking Layer for Tranche 3 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, or PWSA.

“These awards align with the Program Acquisition Executive for Missile Warning and Tracking’s plans for a hybrid missile defense architecture to pursue global stereo coverage and access of missile warning/missile tracking and missile defense capabilities,” the release reads.

L3Harris is responsible for providing 18 hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor-like missile defense variants across two orbital planes, and Sierra Space is charged with providing 18 missile warning and tracking variants across two orbital planes.

The companies’ agreements are valued at approximately $955 million and $798 million, respectively.

“With these awards, SDA is accelerating the deployment of the Tracking Layer to provide the homeland, our deployed forces, and allies with global, persistent indications, detection, identification warning, tracking, and defense against advanced and evolving missile threats,” GP Sandhoo, the SDA director and Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for missile warning and tracking, said in the release.

The AMDT3 award is meant to boost the SDA’s Tracking Layer, which is a global constellation of satellites aimed at detecting and targeting advanced missile threats, with increased coverage and access, the release says.

The award initiates the accelerated proliferation of missile defense sensing to support homeland and theater defense, the announcement states.

Each space vehicle will be interoperable with all SDA Tranche 1, Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 space vehicles and will operate through a “common ground” system.

On Monday, the service announced the launch of its Initial Enlisted Bonus Pilot program, running July 1 to Nov. 30. The first-come, first-serve program will offer a $25,000 bonus to enlistees who commit to eight-year contracts until the cap of 100 bonuses is reached. The incentive is available to new signers regardless of their chosen specialty.

In a conversation hosted by the Military Officers Association of America, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna explained that the service was looking to move to an eight-year enlistment model for all contracts and testing the feasibility of doing so.

“If you want to become a cyber defender, it’s going to take me a little time to be able to train you and give you the experience,” Bentivegna said. “I can’t do it in four years — maybe not even six — but in eight, I can give you training, experience, exercises and get you to become a noncommissioned officer where I need you.”

The Space Force remains the smallest service in the Department of Defense by far, with an authorized end strength of 10,400 for fiscal 2026. Bentivegna said that the service’s current-term enlistment goal was 850, with a target of reaching a force of 11,000 by the end of the fiscal year. While Space Force officials have said they’ve had no difficulty recruiting for a small and highly specialized mission, Bentivegna’s comments reveal the challenges of growing proficiency in technical fields with a lot of required qualifications and training.

The service, he noted, only has three major career fields: space operations, cyber and intelligence.

“In addition to just any basic enlistment, physical and background checks and everything associated with it, [guardians] have to be able to pass a single school background investigation because every single enlisted member has a [Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information] clearance,” Bentivegna said. “So that’s an additional filter that we have to go through.”

While Space Force has seen strong retention since it activated in 2019, Bentivegna emphasized that the time needed to build the time and talent the service needs — while holding off civilian head-hunters — has been a challenge.

“We know we are fighting against industry and the commercial market. When you think about what the commercial industry in the space domain is doing, there’s a lot of desire for somebody who knows orbital mechanics and has done launch to go work for some of the big corporate companies that are trying to take advantage of it,” he said.

While the current pilot program offers financial incentives to get guardians to commit to longer contracts, Bentivegna emphasized that cash alone is unlikely to build the bullpen of experienced and committed troops that the Space Force is after.

“Another zero at the end of a paycheck isn’t necessarily going to equate to the experience of what it means to wear the uniform,” he said. “So I focus a lot on the guardian experience … and keeping them challenged and interested is really important.”

He added that he’d recently sent a message to the force encouraging enlisted guardians to take advantage of the space test program, a 40-hour master’s degree program available to 24 troops per year through the Air Force Flight Test School at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

“So we’re giving enlisted guardians opportunities to do things like that, to say, ‘Hey, stay with us,’” Bentivegna said. “We taught you some things, we gave you a clearance, we got you opportunity … let me build on your potential to do other things you may not be able to do anywhere else.”

Until now, the Space Force has employed four- and six-year enlistment terms. According to this week’s announcement, the $25,000 bonus will be disbursed upon successful completion of technical training, which varies by specialty but can take up to the first two years of an enlistment.

The aircrew of a UH-1N helicopter assigned to the 1st Helicopter Squadron, located at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, made the precautionary landing after noting “vibrating mechanical sounds,” an Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Military Times.

A Joint Base Andrews spokesperson told Military Times that the crew was conducting a routine training flight.

The helicopter landed near the Georgetown Reservoir, owned and operated by the Washington Aqueduct, on Monday at approximately 9:26 p.m. local time.

“Joint Base Andrews takes the safety of the aircrew and our surrounding community seriously,” a Tuesday statement from the base reads.

The four crew members returned safely to the Maryland base, and there was no damage to the aircraft or property damage after the landing, the release reads.

The helicopter landed on Washington Aqueduct’s property near Foxhall Road NW, about a mile away from the German Embassy.

Washington Aqueduct did not immediately return a request for comment.

Pictures of the helicopter after its landing and the crews that responded have circulated social media, including from a D.C. freelance photographer Andrew Leyden.

Pilots of the USAF helicopter that made a precautionary landing in NW DC reported to air traffic control some unusual noises and virbrations prior to setting down on top of an underground reservoir. The pilots have left the scene and mechanics are now inspecting the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/ea0YVoxRTo

— Andrew Leyden (@PenguinSix) July 14, 2026

A maintenance crew has been assessing the aircraft since Tuesday morning to investigate the cause of the vibrations heard by the helicopter unit.

Andrews and the Air Force declined to comment on when the aircraft can be moved from its landing spot.

The Bell UH-1N “Huey” aircraft, which began service in 1970, are light-lift utility helicopters used in various missions, such as disaster relief response, medical evacuation and security and surveillance of off-base nuclear weapons convoys.

As the Air Force moved to modernize its rotary-wing capabilities, it began officially retiring the aging aircraft in 2025 when the Hueys left bases it was stationed at, like Yokota Air Base.

Years prior in 2018, the service announced that existing UH-1N locations would receive replacement aircraft sometime between 2020 and 2032.

Andrews, one of the bases with the aging aircraft, was selected in 2022 to receive 25 MH-139 Grey Wolves to replace the base’s 21 UH-1Ns, but the plans were later scrapped.

Instead, the Air Force opted to reallocate some of its budget to modify 26 HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters in fiscal year 2026.

Earlier this month, the UH-1Ns from Andrews participated in the flyovers in D.C. over the National Mall for America 250 celebrations.

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

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

The military has spent decades refining how it measures readiness.

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

Adaptability matters more than ever

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

The Pentagon has acknowledged as much.

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

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

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

Lessons emerging from Ukraine have intensified those concerns.

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

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

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

The limits of readiness metrics

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

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

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

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

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

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

What adaptive leaders look like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technology alone won’t improve adaptability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the letter, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach argued that every airman needs to focus on fitness and appearance standards in an effort to strengthen the service’s readiness and should familiarize themselves with the updated physical fitness rules.

“Fitness remains essential to every Airman’s ability to execute the mission under challenging conditions,” he wrote.

Unless medically exempt from the waist-to-height ratio component of the force’s fitness assessment, airmen are required to upload their current ratio into myBodyComp by July 31 for active-duty service members and August 31 for air reserve component members.

The waist-to-height ratio assessment is a large part of the force’s overall fitness program and showcases the readiness and health of the service to commanders, Wilsbach wrote.

Wilsbach said that meeting the responsibility of deterring aggression for the country begins with upholding high standards since they are the “foundation of discipline and readiness.”

“Consistently holding ourselves accountable builds trust within our formations, reinforces confidence in our teammates, and ensures we are prepared to answer our Nation’s call,” the letter reads.

Wilsbach also drove home the dress and appearance standards upheld by the force, saying that a professional image reflects discipline, pride and attention to detail and can push excellence.

The letter comes in the wake of a series of stricter standards executed across the military branches since Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth began pushing for more rigorous grooming and fitness standards.

“It’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” Hegseth said in a September 2025 speech. “It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”

Born in Breslau, Germany (present day Wrocław, Poland), the Jewish-born Cohn and his family found refuge in the United States in 1938. Cohn was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, just one month after his 18th birthday.

Sworn in as an American citizen during basic training, Cohn was originally assigned to the 87th Infantry Division before receiving orders as an infantry replacement and was sent to England, France and then all the way to the front line in Belgium.

While stationed near Bastogne, despite trying to distance himself from his native tongue, Army officials learned German was Cohn’s first language. He was subsequently plucked from the infantry ranks and sent to Le Vesinet near Paris. Unlike the Ritchie Boys — U.S. Army recruits who possessed German, Italian and Japanese language skills and immigrants who had fled Europe and Asia for the U.S. — who received a minimum of eight weeks of training, Cohn was slated for a two-week course which was then cut down even further.

“I had one week of training, and I became a full-fledged intelligence agent, well-trained,” quipped Cohn.

“The first night was the scariest night of my life,” Cohn recalled in a conversation with the Friends of the National WWII Memorial. “Not because we were bombarded or anything. Or shot at. It was all the rumors that were coming in.”

Speaking to an audience during a Nov. 13, 2024, conversation with historian and author Alex Kershaw, Cohn recalled, “I was given a rifle and a flashlight and told to go to a small dirt access road and make sure to not let any Germans come in. So, I get in the middle of road, and I stand there and a vehicle comes and I halt, and the driver asks, ‘What the heck you doing there?’ I say, ‘I’m making sure you’re not a German.’ He said, ‘if I was a German, you’d be dead.’

“I thought that was a good point. I go into a ditch in the road. The next vehicle comes. They don’t hear me. They go right by. I’m not doing my job. Now, what am I supposed to do? I’m up. I’m down. I don’t know what to do. Thank goodness around midnight they called me back in.”

For Cohn, the Bulge would hardly be his last time in combat. He saw action during the Rhineland campaign and was among the U.S. soldiers who met the Soviets at the river Elbe in Magdeburg, Germany.

Post-war, Cohn joined the Army Reserve and commissioned as a second lieutenant, deploying to Korea and Vietnam before retiring as a colonel in 1978.

Cohn’s celebration of life will take place on July 15 at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.

Graham, 71, died unexpectedly Saturday from an aortic dissection, according to a preliminary report from the Washington, D.C., Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The South Carolina senator had returned hours earlier from a trip to Ukraine, where he sought to negotiate new sanctions against buyers of Russian oil.

In a Truth Social post Saturday, President Donald Trump called Graham “one of the greatest people and senators” he had ever known.

“He was always working and was a great American patriot,” Trump wrote.

Trump added later that the country had “lost a great man.”

“We lost a great person, a kind person, a very smart person … Everything for him was about work. It was about loving the country,” Trump said.

In a statement Sunday, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., remembered Graham as a “polarizing” figure, but also as an intellectual who devoted himself to his causes.

“Theodore Roosevelt’s famous ‘Man in the Arena’ concept certainly applies to Senator Graham, who relished the dust, sweat, and challenges of public life,” Reed said in a statement. “One day, we’d be fiercely debating the Iraq war and the next day he’d be the lone Republican on the floor sticking up for a judicial nominee from Rhode Island. And in both instances, he’d bring his same keen intellect, high-level energy, and effectiveness to bear.”

Graham, a foreign policy hawk known for staunchly defending Israel and Ukraine, joined the Air Force in 1982 shortly after finishing law school at the University of South Carolina.

In the first two years of his career, he garnered national attention for uncovering problems with drug testing procedures at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, that included the mishandling of samples and the discharge of innocent airmen from the service.

The effort was highlighted in a report by 60 Minutes in 1984 and earned then-Capt. Graham an Air Force Commendation Medal.

Graham then spent four years in Germany before leaving active duty in 1988 and returning home to join the South Carolina Air National Guard.

Two years later, Graham was activated for the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War to provide support for service members preparing for deployment at McEntire Air National Guard Base.

Graham continued to serve in the Air Force after he was elected to the U.S. House in 1994 and the U.S. Senate in 2002, although a 2015 analysis by The Washington Post found that from 1995 to 2005, he received credit for 108 hours of training, less than a day and a half per year.

Graham told the publication that he called the period his “wilderness years,” in which he struggled to find his place in the Reserves while working as a legislator. He was not paid during that period and only collected retirement points during that time.

Once he established himself in the U.S. Senate, however, Graham spent congressional breaks on short-term duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he worked on Rule of Law issues.

In addition to his Air Force Commendation Medal, Graham earned a Meritorious Service Medal for his work at Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany and was awarded a Bronze Star for service as a senior legal adviser in Operation Enduring Freedom.

Graham retired as a colonel from the Air Force Reserves in June 2015 just as he announced his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He suspended that effort six months later.

Graham and his sister, Darline, were orphaned in 1977 following the deaths of their parents. In 1982, after he joined the Air Force, Graham formally adopted his sister, nine years his junior, to ensure that she had access to Tricare health care coverage and other military benefits.

On Monday, Trump proposed that Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, fill his seat through Jan. 3, 2027, the remainder of his term. Graham was running for reelection in November.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach thanked Graham not only as a senator but “as an Airman.”

“I had the privilege to serve alongside him in combat, where he was a phenomenal officer and [judge advocate general]” wrote Wilsbach on X on Monday. “What an asset we had with a sitting member of Congress, who was an air-minded Senator ... On behalf of all Airmen, we send condolences to the Graham family.”

The mission to China was expected to last through early September, with an investigative team working in Hunan province while field operations are conducted in Guangshi province bordering Vietnam, according to DPAA officials.

The presence of a new recovery team in China marked another milestone in the slow evolution of China’s cooperation on the MIA issue since agreeing in 2008 to give limited access to records of the People’s Liberation Army that might aid in searches.

Since the 2008 agreement, there have been about 10 searches in China, and in February 2024 China acknowledged for the first time that Chinese specialists were assisting in the site surveys.

“Over the years, committed to the humanitarian spirit, the Chinese side has provided assistance for the U.S. military to search for the remains of its missing personnel in China,” Zhang Xiaogang, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, said at a regular press briefing in February 2024.

Currently, there are believed to be about 678 unresolved cases of missing U.S. personnel in China from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Over the years, DPAA officials have made repeated pledges to reduce the number of unresolved cases and get as many answers as possible to the families of the missing but those promises have now run up against the hard numbers in the defense budget.

At an annual briefing for the families last month, DPAA Director Kelly McKeague detailed the funding shortfalls in his remarks to the families and in a series of charts. DPAA’s budget of $185 million for Fiscal Year 2025 was reduced to $167 million in FY26, and was projected to come down again to $160 million in FY27.

The result would be that the 27 recovery and investigative teams that were in operation in Vietnam in FY2025 would be reduced to a total of seven in the projected FY2027 DPAA budget, McKeague said.

McKeague also told the families that DPAA effectively had a new boss. McKeague would remain as director but he would report directly to controversial retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. Tata has called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” and said he believed Obama was a Muslim.

In an interview with Military Times, McKeague pledged to work closely with Tata and said he had urged the families to press their representatives to support a bill proposed by Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., to boost the DPAA’s budget by $40 million.

The bill has been attached to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act policy measure but there is no guarantee that the money will actually be appropriated.

Over the years, the recovery missions in China have had limited success, but McKeague pointed to what had been the unresolved case of Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Morton Sher, of Greenville, South Carolina.

Sher died at age 22 when his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter was shot down on Aug. 20, 1943, and crashed in Hengyang City, Hunan province.

At the time of the crash, local villagers put up a makeshift headstone with Chinese markings at the site of the crash. Despite this, a postwar search proved unsuccessful and Sher was officially classified him as killed in action and unrecoverable.

At the time of the crash, Sher was flying for the Army Air Forces 76th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group, 14th Air Force, where many of the Flying Tiger veterans had gone after the volunteers disbanded.

According to the Defense Department, while flying in October 1942, engine trouble forced Sher to bring his aircraft down near a Chinese village, where the villagers greeted him with celebration and ordered up a feast, with Sher providing the entertainment. They later escorted him through nearby mountain villages back to his base.

Sher later recounted the experience in an Army newsletter that was picked up by the Associated Press: “I sang a few American songs for them and they were highly pleased. The banquet turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of the trip.”

In a letter home the day before he was shot down, Sher told his parents that he was turning down a chance to come home and take a job as an instructor. “I let another pilot take that instructing job, for I find things too exciting here to leave right now,” Sher said in the letter.

Sher’s remains were eventually identified on June 11, 2025.

In a statement, Air Force Col. Brett Waring, commander of the 476th Fighter Group at Moody AFB, said that “None of us knew Morton Sher. We didn’t know his name until recently, but as soon as we learned of his coming home, we leapt at the opportunity to honor him and support his family. The bond that we share never dies, and no one is left behind or ever forgotten.”

“I have delegated tasking authority to the War Department’s Office of General Counsel, empowering OGC to request and receive all information, records, and support across the department concerning media leak investigations,” Hegseth said in a Monday social media video.

The move comes a few months after President Donald Trump threatened to jail the journalists who leaked information regarding the missing airman from a downed F-15E fighter jet over Iran.

The president said the administration was looking for the “leaker” in an April press conference, alleging that it was unknown to Iranian officials there was a the missing pilot in their country until the information was shared with a U.S. media outlet.

“We’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security. Give it up or go to jail,’” Trump said at the time.

Trump criticized the leak, saying it put the rescue mission at risk as the government of Iran announced an award for anyone who could capture the U.S. pilot.

He did not name a specific news organization, but The New York Times and Axios, among others, were the first to report on the missing pilot.

“The security of our nation cannot be a bargaining chip for those who seek momentary headlines,” Hegseth said in the video. “Access to confidential and secret information is a sacred trust, and those who betray that trust will be met with the full force of the law.”

Capt. Nathanial “Icarus” Welch received the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor earlier this month for bravery and devotion to duty during his 2025 deployment, according to a release

Welch, a pilot and chief of plans and programs in the 18th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, was deployed to Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, as an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot with the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron in April 2025.

During an April 29, 2025, mission, Welch repeatedly flew into heavily defended airspace as he successfully evaded the three enemy and warned the formation of incoming threats.

As Welch came within a few hundred feet of the explosions, he remained on station to protect coalition aircraft until the threat subsided, the release reads.

“Capt. Welch exemplifies everything the nation asks for in a fighter pilot escorting other combatants into a heavily defended enemy position,” Air Force Col. Matthew Johnston, 354th Fighter Wing commander, said in the release.

“He selflessly placed his aircraft between enemy missile systems and the aircraft he was protecting to ensure mission success and the survival of the force package,” he continued.

The release did not provide details about the mission, but Welch’s squadron at the time, known as the “Wild Weasel” unit, was deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Rough Rider, which began mid-March 2025 against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Previous Air Force releases show that the 480th squadron participated in Operation Rough Rider and that other members of the unit received awards for their service in U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility.

Welch was given the award by Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, 11th Air Force commander, in a ceremony at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, the statement said.

“Icarus, thanks for doing your job with excellence and valor in the face of danger,” Davis said in the release. “I know you would go back and do it again; I know all your wingmen would also have done the same. It is rare we get the opportunity to award an Airmen with the Distinguished Flying Cross with the Valor device, and you deserve it.”

A Distinguished Flying Cross is awarded heroism or extraordinary achievement during an aerial flight. The “V” device recognizes acts of heroism beyond normally expected while in direct combat against an armed enemy.

“The trends are moving in the right direction,” Jerry McGinn, who co-authored the study for the Center for Strategic and International Analysis think tank, told Defense News.

However, the study — described as a progress report on reforms to the defense manufacturing and acquisition system — still found numerous problems with ramping up and sustaining wartime production.

For example, “according to several measures — manufacturing lead times, critical munitions and materials stockpiles, and supply chain security — the U.S. industrial base has a long way to go to achieve resilience,” warned the analysis by CSIS’s Center for the Industrial Base.

CSIS did find measurable improvements since November 2025, when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vowed to “transform the entire acquisition system to operate on a wartime footing.”

Hegseth also promised to “inspire American industry to become a wartime industrial base that focuses on speed and volume.”

Most striking is the number of new companies in the defense field.

“Roughly 10,000 new firms have entered the market in the past two years and nontraditional companies received over $120 billion in contract obligations in FY 2025, adding competition and innovation to the sector,” CSIS noted. “Munitions contract obligations have risen 330 percent since FY 2010. Spurred by this increased demand and depleted inventories, the Pentagon is signing multiyear agreements with munitions producers and suppliers on a historic scale.”

The military is also responding to depleted stockpiles of expensive guided weapons that have been rapidly consumed by the Iran and Ukraine wars.

The Pentagon’s 2027 budget request for munitions allocated 49% to low-cost munitions — defined as costing less than $600,000 apiece — rising to 70% by 2031.

The U.S. is also strengthening its defense supply chain, such as “multiyear procurement agreements, direct-to-supplier investments, and leaner acquisition pathways,” as well as investing in defense companies such as L3Harris Missile Solutions, according to CSIS.

However, while this signals government commitment to defense production, it “also complicates competitive dynamics within the industry as new entrants and established suppliers alike seek to meet rapidly growing demand for munitions at scale.”

Also notable is federal investment in rare earths, which has seen production soar from 95 tons in 2022, to 8,900 tons in 2025. Nonetheless, “the erosion of domestic rare earth manufacturing capacity and the rise of Chinese control took decades to unfold, however, and it will take several years of enduring effort for the United States and its allies to build, scale, and sustain the production capacity of these key defense inputs.”

Exports of U.S. arms, or cooperative multinational projects such as the F-35 fighter, have also become a pillar of America’s defense industry. Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, have more than tripled, from less than $20 billion in 2015 to more than $80 billion in 2025.

The Trump administration wants to take this further with the “America First Arms Transfer Strategy,” launched in February 2026.

“The United States will use foreign purchases and capital to support domestic reindustrialization, expand production capacity, and improve the resilience of the United States defense industrial base,” the White House executive order declared.

Ultimately, the federal government can control defense production through the products it demands, the prices it is willing to pay, and the incentives it offers.

“It’s a monopsony,” McGinn said. “Government sets the market. Government can regulate the market. So, if the government wants different outcomes, it changes how it buys.”

William G. “Bill” Fitzhugh, who has served as the agency’s deputy director since June 29, will transition to the new position when the current director, John E. Hall, retires.

Most recently, Fitzhugh served as acting principal deputy for the assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, where he was instrumental in advancing the commissary’s supply chain transformation, officials said. He has held various leadership positions at the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Bill Fitzhugh is the right executive to continue transforming DeCA, finding ways to better serve our military community and protect valuable commissary benefits for the next generation,” said Anthony J. Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in the July 1 announcement.

The Defense Commissary Agency operates 235 stores worldwide, with a congressional mandate to save eligible customers in the military community at least 25% on groceries compared to civilian stores outside the gate.

Its annual budget is about $1.5 billion.

“I am honored to lead DeCA at a pivotal time,” Fitzhugh said in the announcement. “I thank John for his leadership in transforming the agency’s business practices so that we can offer a competitive and attractive shopping experience to our patrons. As director, I look forward to continuing the positive momentum he built and contributing to the readiness of the force.”

Hall became director of the commissary agency in June 2023, and is credited with a number of improvements, including increasing the availability of grocery stock to hard-to reach locations. He modernized the shopping experience for customers by expanding the Click2Go curbside program and the doorstep delivery programs. He has also led a pilot program granting commissary access to DoD civilians in certain locations.

Hall praised the dedication of the commissary agency’s work force.

“Their unwavering commitment to the eligible patrons, military families, and service members they support is truly inspiring,” he said in the announcement of the transition.

In 2025, Fitzhugh served as acting assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs. Since 2021, he has held various executive roles in that office, which oversees a large portfolio of programs, ranging from the commissaries to Department of Defense Education Activity, to military and civilian personnel policies, Total Force planning and requirements, military community and family policy, and reserve integration.

Fitzhugh entered the Army in 1988 and retired after 23 years.

Over the years, the commissary agency has been led by a mix of military retirees or civilians with backgrounds in DoD leadership.

The service determined that a two-pilot configuration would best fit the country’s newest long-range strike bomber’s “mission profile,” according to the release.

The Air Force is also creating a pilot transition program from select weapons system officers, or WSOs, and combat systems officers, or CSOs. The officers will be chosen to attend the program with a follow-on assignment to the B-21.

“To maximize the lethality and survivability of the Raider, it is imperative to retain the deep tactical and combat experience currently residing within the WSO and CSO communities,” the statement says.

When available, eligible airmen will be given the relevant information through command channels, per the release.

“This deliberate talent management strategy secures the future of global strike capabilities, ensuring the Air Force remains postured to execute extended-duration, long-range strike missions in highly contested environments,” the release reads.

The service’s first B-21 took flight in 2023 in Palmdale, California, where Northrop Grumman has been developing and testing the aircraft. The Air Force plans to build at least 100 B-21s in variants with and without pilots.

The Raider is the nation’s first new bomber aircraft in more than 30 years. It is part of the Pentagon’s effort to modernize its nuclear triad as it moves to invest in new weapons amid growing threats like China’s military modernization.

In February, Northrop Grumman and the Air Force announced they were accelerating the annual production capacity by 25%. Deliveries for the Raider began in 2025, a year following its contract award.

The first operational B-21 is slated to arrive at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, in 2027.

The program’s increase in production will begin gradually with the expected full production rate of seven aircraft per year.

The B-21 Raider is meant to replace the aging B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit fleets that have been in service since 1986 and 1997, respectively.

The B-1B requires a crew of four, while the B-2 only requires a crew of two like the B-21 now.

At the center of the debate are proposed changes affecting conditions such as sleep apnea and tinnitus, a funding mechanism that supporters and critics interpret very differently, and competing versions of the Major Richard Star Act.

The legislation would combine roughly 60 veterans bills into a single package affecting veterans, surviving families, caregivers and medically retired service members. It includes caregiver reforms, survivor benefits, mental health initiatives, community care improvements and the original 2023 version of the long-sought Major Richard Star Act.

Nearly every major veterans service organization supports those priorities. Their disagreement, meanwhile, stems from how Congress proposes to pay for them.

This fight didn’t develop overnight. Instead, it began at the convergence of three separate efforts: VA’s yearslong modernization of its disability rating schedule, Congress’ search for an offset to finance a large veterans package and different conclusions about whether projected savings from a pending rule-making change should remain available for veterans programs.

The result is one of the most significant policy disagreements among major veterans organizations in recent years.

Modernization effort years in the making

Long before veterans organizations began publicly battling over the omnibus, VA was already working through a comprehensive overhaul of the Veterans Affairs Schedule for Rating Disabilities, the regulations used to evaluate service-connected disabilities and determine monthly compensation.

The modernization effort began after the Government Accountability Office designated VA’s disability compensation program as “high risk” because portions of the rating schedule had not kept pace with advances in medicine and clinical practice.

In 2009, VA began systematically reviewing all 15 body systems. The proposed revisions published in April 2022 represented the latest phase of that effort, including changes affecting mental health, respiratory and auditory conditions, among them sleep apnea and tinnitus.

Public comments closed years ago, but the remaining rule-makings were still moving through the regulatory process when VA appeared before Congress at the beginning of this year.

During a Jan. 14 hearing before the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, Nina Tann, executive director of VA’s Compensation Service, testified that the department anticipated publishing the remaining four body systems in three final rule-makings around the summer of 2026, followed by implementation and an effective date.

In prepared testimony submitted to the committee, she wrote that VA expected to complete the remaining rule-makings by the end of fiscal 2026, concluding what she described as the first holistic modernization of the rating schedule since 1945.

Those statements became part of the factual backdrop as lawmakers worked to assemble one of the largest veterans legislative packages in years.

Finding the money

The Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act did not begin as a single proposal. Instead, lawmakers combined dozens of bipartisan measures that had already advanced independently through Congress.

Together, they would expand or improve programs affecting caregivers, survivors, veterans’ healthcare, military retirement and disability compensation.

Like most large authorization bills, expanding benefits required lawmakers to identify spending reductions elsewhere. Supporters of the legislation pointed to VA’s pending disability rating revisions.

Candace Wheeler, national legislative director for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, said TAPS understood from conversations with VA and the department’s January congressional testimony that the remaining rule-making was expected to proceed during fiscal 2026.

According to Wheeler, TAPS views the projected savings differently than critics of the legislation. Rather than reducing existing disability compensation, Wheeler said Congress is attempting to retain projected federal savings associated with a rule VA had already proposed and testified it expected to complete.

Otherwise, she said, those savings would leave veterans programs altogether. She described it as “the right color of money.”

Wheeler also acknowledged why many organizations remain uncomfortable with the proposal.

“We understand organizations and people that are concerned about taking from veterans to pay for veterans,” she said. “We have long said the same thing. But in this particular legislation, it is because of a rule that was already put forward.”

That distinction helps explain why TAPS, the Military Officers Association of America, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and several other organizations endorsed the omnibus despite opposing similar funding approaches in other circumstances.

Coming to a different conclusion

Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars have not opposed most of the legislation itself. Instead, both organizations argue Congress should identify another way to finance the package, rather than rely on projected savings associated with disability compensation changes.

Their position reflects a broader philosophy about the purpose of VA disability compensation.

In testimony submitted to Congress earlier this year, DAV argued disability compensation recognizes the lasting functional loss associated with service-connected injuries and illnesses and does not serve only as wage replacement for unemployable veterans.

The organization described the disability compensation framework as fundamentally sound and cautioned against proposals that could weaken its underlying purpose.

VFW’s January testimony addressed the modernization effort from a different perspective but acknowledged that the remaining respiratory, auditory and mental health revisions were still progressing through rule-making.

The organization noted that public comment periods had concluded, rule-making remained underway and full completion was projected for fiscal 2026. It also told lawmakers that VFW had repeatedly requested updates from VA and had consistently been told the remaining regulations were still under review.

Those statements do not suggest agreement over the proposed funding mechanism, but they do show that the organizations broadly understood the modernization effort was continuing while reaching different conclusions about whether Congress should treat projected savings from that unfinished process as available to finance new veterans legislation.

The dispute goes public

The philosophical divide soon moved beyond policy papers and congressional testimony.

Veterans of Foreign Wars launched a public campaign urging veterans to contact lawmakers and oppose the funding provision. Disabled American Veterans issued statements arguing Congress should remove the offset and finance the legislation another way. Both organizations emphasized that they supported many of the bill’s underlying provisions but opposed using projected disability compensation savings to pay for them.

The dispute escalated on July 1 when House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., publicly criticized a VFW advocacy cartoon promoting the campaign.

In a statement, Bost called the organization’s messaging “inflammatory, fear-mongering, and dangerous political rhetoric” and urged VFW to remove the image.

Another development the same day received far less attention.

Bost and Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., sent a formal letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins requesting that the department examine whether VFW’s conduct remained consistent with the requirements governing VA-accredited veterans service organizations under 38 C.F.R. §§ 14.628 and 14.629.

They also asked VA to review the organization’s commercial licensing arrangement under 38 C.F.R. § 14.628(f) in connection with merchandise featuring the disputed cartoon.

The lawmakers did not direct VA to revoke VFW’s accreditation or recommend a specific outcome. Instead, they asked the department to review whether the organization’s actions complied with existing regulations.

VFW General Counsel John Muckelbauer told Military Times the organization first learned of the letter from congressional staff after it had been sent and said neither lawmaker contacted the organization beforehand.

He said VFW remains confident its advocacy complies with VA accreditation standards and argued that speaking forcefully before Congress is central to the organization’s mission.

“Reasonable people can disagree about legislation,” Muckelbauer said. “What should never be in question is the right and responsibility of veterans service organizations to advocate independently for the veterans they represent.”

Because the matter raises legal issues, Muckelbauer said VFW has responded “through the appropriate legal channels” and declined to discuss those communications publicly.

The Major Richard Star Act change-up

As debate over the funding mechanism intensified, another significant change inside the omnibus attracted comparatively little attention.

For years, the Major Richard Star Act has sought to restore concurrent receipt for combat-injured veterans who were medically retired before completing 20 years of military service. Under current law, many lose a portion of their earned military retirement because they also receive VA disability compensation.

The original 2023 version of the legislation focused on approximately 54,000 combat-injured medically retired veterans. In 2025, lawmakers introduced a broader standalone proposal that would have expanded eligibility to roughly 255,000 medically retired veterans beyond the original combat-related population, totaling more than 300,000 medically retired veterans.

Congressional Budget Office estimates reflected a substantially higher projected cost associated with that expansion, inflating the price tag from $10 billion to $78 billion over 10 years.

The version incorporated into the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act does not include that broader eligibility. Instead, it mirrors the earlier combat-related framework, limiting eligibility to approximately 54,000 combat-injured medically retired veterans, not all Chapter 61 medically retired veterans.

Restoring concurrent receipt can return hundreds or even thousands of dollars each month to retirees whose military careers ended because of combat-related injuries.

Wheeler said confusion between the two versions has complicated public discussion of the legislation.

“If you add in all of [the additional 255,000 medically retired veterans], then yes, it would balloon the cost,” she said. “But that is not what is currently moving forward in TCAVA.”

Wheeler noted that coalition members intentionally focused on the narrower proposal because expanding eligibility further “would make it very hard to pass,” explaining why the version of the Richard Star Act included in the omnibus differs significantly from the broader standalone proposal introduced by Congress last year.

VA’s current position

While Congress debated the legislation, VA publicly described the status of the underlying rule-making differently than it had during the January hearing.

Asked by Military Times about the 2022 proposed disability ratings revisions, Quinn Slaven, VA press secretary, said “no changes are planned or imminent.”

Slaven added that after receiving significant public comment back in February, the proposal “would need to undergo significant changes prior to being finalized.”

Military Times asked VA whether the department’s expected timeline has changed since Nina Tann testified in January that VA anticipated completing the remaining rule-makings by the end of fiscal 2026. As of publication, the department had not responded to that specific inquiry.

Veterans organizations interpreted the significance of that timeline differently as Congress assembled the omnibus legislation.

Congress has not yet decided whether to advance the legislation in its current form. VA has not finalized the 2022 disability ratings proposal, nor has it been withdrawn.

Until both questions are resolved, the debate that has divided the veterans community is likely to continue.

In written testimony submitted for the Jan. 14 hearing, VFW stated that disability compensation exists because America made a promise, and they should honor the contract.

“Several proposed changes have been delayed multiple times,” VFW wrote, “leaving veterans and stakeholders uncertain about timing and the potential effects of the proposed changes.”

With the VSOs supportive of TCAVA understanding that these rule-making changes to VA disability will be final by Oct. 1, Candace Wheeler cautions, “That money will go back to the Treasury if it isn’t used.”

Brig. Gen. Matthew Ross, the director of the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Defense Department’s lead organization for countering drones, described the handbook as “not a technical manual or detailed set of rules” but rather “a common foundation to shape our collective approach to this challenge.”

Using conversational language, freehand sketches and relatable references, Small Drones, Big Problems: A First Principles Approach to Countering-UAS makes the information approachable.

Inside, the handbook introduces the concepts of drones and drone protections. It offers guidance such as “The Four Ps of Drone Threats” and “The Five Ds of Protecting Against Drones,” as well as simple definitions of technical concepts and procedures.

But more importantly, it offers a perspective.

In the opening chapter, the handbook shares a brief anecdote from 1939 about the “happy time” for Nazi Germany because Allied Forces did not yet know how to react to U-boat operations.

“But the ‘happy time’ didn’t last forever,” the handbook reads. “British and American ships learned to adapt to the threat by implementing a convoy system to protect shipping lines, using escort ships, and developing new technologies like sonar, radar, and depth charges.”

The handbook grounds the subject for drone threats, explaining that technology in warfare has always changed, but weapons and equipment don’t win wars alone.

“Learning militaries adapt and innovate, repurposing existing defenses and building new ones to address vulnerabilities exploited by drones,” the handbook reads. “They change how they think about drones and how they fight.”

While a majority of the 100 pages is dedicated to applying tips and techniques to prevent or avoid drone attacks, it also offers a perspective on artificial intelligence, or AI.

“There is a temptation to talk about AI as either a savior or a threat, either a magical solution that fixes everything or a frightening force that removes human control. Neither description is useful. In practice, AI is far more neutral than either of these extreme perspectives suggest,” the handbook reads.

The handbook describes AI as a tool meant for helping analyze data by recognizing patterns and making predictions to assist humans in decision making.

“It does not replace judgment and disciplined decision-making. It does not understand intent or consequences. It does not decide what matters. What it does well is sort, compare, correlate, and highlight signals that would otherwise be lost in the noise,” the handbook reads.

The handbook argues that AI tools can be used for “helping humans apply the principles of detection, denial, disruption, defeat, and discipline more effectively.”

“When protecting against drones, AI is not only useful in moments of crisis, when stress is high in a (Base Defense Operations Center) or when a patrol is already reacting. Its value extends across the entire protection challenge, long before a drone poses a threat,” the handbook reads.

Army Maj. Joe Amoroso, deputy chief of strategic initiatives for JIATF 401, said the handbook offers “vital first principles” to help in “countering the defining threat of our time.”

“It is crucial to build a common foundation for counter-drone efforts as we work with the entire government and interagency partners to respond to this growing threat,” he said.

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois and Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan, wrote Collins July 1 saying the VFW’s use of the cartoon raised questions regarding the organization’s “fitness to represent claimants before the department.”

They asked Collins to review whether the VFW’s accreditation was consistent with serving as a veteran service organization, examine whether the VFW’s licensing of imagery to vendors for commercial sales was appropriate and look into commercial arrangements the VFW has made with businesses such as Grunt Style, which sells t-shirts emblazoned with the editorial cartoon.

The cartoon, which depicts suited “bureaucrats” — presumably the VA — and the “media” pointing rifles at two veterans with the subtext “punishing veterans,” “removing benefits” and “‘waste and fraud,’ was developed last year in response to a series of articles in the Washington Post on disability claims fraud but has resurfaced following the VFW’s opposition to legislation sponsored by Bost that would reduce future benefits for veterans afflicted with tinnitus and sleep apnea.

Bost has taken issue with what he said is the violent nature of the cartoon.

On Wednesday, he accused the VFW of inciting political violence with the imagery and called on VFW to remove the cartoon from social media, stop the sale of shirts and affirm its “commitment to fact-based advocacy.”

“Every organization has the right to advocate for or against pending legislation in Congress. That right, however, carries a corresponding responsibility to do so in a manner that promotes informed civic debate rather than imagery that can reasonably be interpreted as glorifying or normalizing political violence,” Bost and Bergman wrote.

The letter was first reported by Liz Hartman, a former Marine and veterans advocate, on her All Due Respect Substack column.

The VFW opposes a portion of the proposed Take Care of America’s Veterans Act that would increase benefits for thousands of veterans but cover its cost by instituting changes to the disability ratings requirements for sleep apnea and tinnitus for veterans moving forward.

The VA accredits numerous veterans service organizations such as the VFW, the American Legion, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to help veterans file disability claims.

By law, only individuals and organizations accredited by the VA can file an initial benefits claim on a veteran’s behalf, and they are not allowed to charge them for work related to filing a claim. Once a claim is denied, veterans may hire attorneys or companies to appeal the decision.

The VFW employs thousands of veteran service officers to provide this service.

In the past decade, a number of private, for-profit companies have stepped in to assist veterans with the claims process, for a cost. The companies, which aren’t allowed to assist with claims filing, instead provide help gathering evidence to support initial claims and then help veterans on appeal.

But there is evidence that some of these companies have broken the law and are extracting fees from veterans with initial filings.

In May, a federal judge found the company Veterans Guardian operated as an unaccredited agent, engaging in deceptive business practices. In the class action suit, plaintiffs alleged the company collected more than $250 million in fees from veterans.

Bergman has introduced two bills that would allow firms such as Veterans Guardian assist legally with initial claims, capping fees at $12,500.

Both Bergman and Bost also have received political donations from political action committees affiliated with Veterans Guardian.

In response to questions from Military Times, VFW General Counsel John Muckelbauer said neither Bost nor Bergman reached out to the group before sending the letter. According to Muckelbauer, the VFW believes its advocacy campaign against a portion of the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act is consistent with its mission.

“We are confident that our advocacy is entirely consistent with our responsibilities as an accredited veterans service organization. Speaking forcefully on behalf of veterans is not separate from our mission. It is one of the principal reasons Congress chartered this organization more than 125 years ago,” Muckelbauer wrote in an email Thursday.

He added that the letter challenges that advocacy and nothing in it “identifies allegation[s] that the VFW or any of its accredited representatives violated VA accreditation requirements, acted unethically, failed to competently represent a single veteran, or otherwise failed to satisfy the standards applicable to accredited veterans service organizations.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to a request for comment by publication.

The USS Constitution, named by George Washington and built with copper bolts forged by Paul Revere, was launched in 1797. The three-masted heavy frigate earned is famous nickname — “Old Ironsides” — during the War of 1812 after an astonished American sailor reportedly watched British cannonballs bounce harmlessly off the ship’s exceptionally thick oak hull and shouted, “Huzzah, her sides are made of iron!” according to the National Park Service.

While the wooden ship remains a symbol of durability and strength, its longevity would not be possible without a special 40 acres of land set aside for the care and maintenance of the ship from Naval Support Activity Crane.

According to National Geographic, NSA Crane dates back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal-era, when the U.S. government, in the depths of the Great Depression, purchased unfarmable land across the U.S. and reforested them for the purpose of creating jobs. NSA Crane was among the plots of land purchased by the FDR administration, and its 40,000 acres of hills was soon swarming with workers planting a wide variety of oak, hickory, poplar, maple and ash trees across the acres of Crane.

The onset of the war in 1939 prompted the U.S. Navy — whose weapons and munitions at the time were housed in Delaware — to seek a location that a potential enemy could not strike by sea.

Central Indiana was the ticket and so the government purchased another 30,000 acres surrounding NSA Crane.

The first administrative buildings on the base, according to Nat Geo, were dedicated in December 1941 — just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But it wasn’t until the nation’s bicentennial in 1976 that NSA Crane reentered the Navy’s consciousness.

With attention returning to the storied, yet aging USS Constitution, NSA Crane’s concentration of high-quality white oak caught the Navy’s eye.

The oak forest is one of the few in the United States that contains centuries-old oak long and thick enough to provide the necessary lumber for the hull of the hulking Constitution.

Mature trees anywhere from 110 to 125 years old and 120 to 130 feet tall are needed for the ship that requires near constant maintenance. Its two most recent dry dock restorations — concluding in 2017 — required the felling of 114 white oaks.

Today, 40 acres of the park have been dedicated to keeping the warship afloat, where much of the timber is harvested, and it remains the only forest in the U.S. that is owned and managed by the Navy to support its fleet of old wooden ships.

VA officials said Monday the number of backlogged claims — those pending for 125 days or more — has fallen by 74% since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025. They added that currently, just 11.6% of all pending claims were older than 125 days, compared with 70% of the 600,000 claims pending more than a decade ago.

The VA has invested millions in automated systems, including a program called Automated Decision Support that pulls together information from medical records and other evidence to synthesize information for claims adjudicators to consider when deciding a claim.

The department also increased the size of the processing staff by more than a third, adding 9,000 claims adjudicators from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2024, and reinstated mandatory overtime in May 2025 to address the situation.

According to the VA, the department has decided more than a million claims in fewer than 30 days since January 2025. The average time a veteran waits now for a claim is roughly 78 days, officials added.

“This is what putting veterans first looks like,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud of these historic numbers, which mean faster decisions, better service and more benefits for the men and women who have worn the uniform.”

VA officials did not answer specific questions regarding the approval rate for the backlogged claims, but VA Press Secretary Quinn Slaven said from October 1 through June 1, the total approval rate for compensation and pension benefits was “60%, in line with the last 10 years.”

According to Slaven, the top five conditions that received approval for initial filings were: tinnitus; paralysis of the sciatic nerve; limitation of knee flexion; lumbosacral or cervical strain; and migraine.

The VA’s claims backlog reached a record high of more than 611,000 in 2013 but was drawn down to roughly 70,000 by September 2015, the result of improvements in processing systems, increased use of digital medical records and hiring.

From then until early 2020, the claims backlog hovered at roughly 60,000 cases. VA officials said at the time that the 60,000 figure was likely the lowest the department could reach given the number of complex claims filed that need special attention to consider.

In early 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the backlog began to climb as a result of the closure of many VA processing centers, reaching 200,000 cases by the end of the year.

Following passage of the PACT Act, the landmark legislation that provided expanded benefits for veterans exposed to environmental pollutants while serving overseas, the number of claims filed skyrocketed. With the increase came a rise in the backlog, which peaked at 410,000 cases in 2023.

433rd Airlift Wing Reserve airmen, alongside Drug Enforcement Administration personnel, used the force’s largest and heaviest aircraft to remove 23 pallets with an estimated value of $5 billion over the course of three days in Operation Burnout, according to a Tuesday release.

In mid-May, the wing airlifted the narcotics using a C-5M Super Galaxy from March Air Reserve Base, California, to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, ahead of its transport to an incinerator facility in Indiana to be destroyed.

The release did not state which narcotic, or narcotics, was seized but did point out that this operation supported the DEA’s goals to protect American committees by keeping illegal substances such as fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine off the streets.

“We have to store this stuff once we seize it in an approved warehouse, but more stuff is always coming in,” Gerald Mapp, senior foreign integration advisor to the DEA for the Department of Defense, said in the release.

“You have to look at fentanyl as a major problem — one pill can kill you. Taking these drugs off the street protects the American public, and we couldn’t do this without the Air Force’s heavy airlift capabilities,” he continued, highlighting how recent environmental closures of major California incinerators left the DEA with growing stockpiles of seized narcotics.

If not for Air Force assistance, the DEA would have to drive the substances across several states. This in turn would take excessive manpower and time as well as increasing the possibility of security issues, like ambush, theft or logistical failure, the release says.

Joint Task Force North began planning the operation months ahead of time, examining cross-country flight paths, ground security protocols and the intricacies of hazardous cargo waivers.

Loadmasters and aerial port airmen from the 50th and 56th Aerial Port Squadrons, both located at March Air Reserve Base, assisted the DEA with packaging, sealing and loading the pallets, the release reads.

“We were able to put a call out to the whole enterprise to see who was willing to pick up this mission, and the 433rd answered the call,” Air Force Maj. Benjamin Sperring, air mobility chief for JTF North, said in the release.

“Having the C-5 gave us the capability of a larger aircraft, meaning we could fly more seized narcotics and make a bigger impact on the crime rates,” he continued. “The interagency collaboration to get these drugs absolutely destroyed has been fantastic.”

Lockheed Martin’s C-5M Super Galaxy is a transport aircraft and the largest aircraft in the force’s inventory, aimed at transporting cargo and personnel for the Defense Department. The aircraft has a cargo load ability of 281,001 pounds. Without aerial refueling, the C-5M can fly 2,150 nautical miles, offload and fly to another base 500 nautical miles away from the original location.

Airmen in the 621st Contingency Response Wing are supporting Venezuelan authorities with airfield operations to land C-17s that are delivering essential earthquake relief, according to a Wednesday social media post.

U.S. Southern Command announced a day after the quakes that the U.S. would be sending C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, alongside C-130 Hercules, the amphibious transport ship USS Fort Lauderdale and the littoral combat ship USS Billings.

On June 24, two devastating earthquakes hit Venezuela with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 within seconds of each other. The death toll had risen to 3,811 as of Wednesday, and 16,740 people were injured, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said in an address.

Nine Americans are among the dead, State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott confirmed Tuesday on Fox News.

The U.S. has committed around $350 million to the response effort in Venezuela thus far, Pigott said.

The 621st Contingency Response Wing deployed a Contingency Response Element from the 321st Contingency Response Squadron to Simón Bolívar International Airport, according to a July 3 release.

The CRE, made up of 110 airmen, are working with local aviation authorities, the Venezuelan interim authority and the U.S. interagency response team to expand the intake of humanitarian aid through air transport, according to the statement.

The Contingency Response Airfield Assessment team was first on the ground to evaluate the airfield’s structural integrity and runway load-bearing capacity to verify its ability to have heavy cargo land safely.

Then the remaining CRE units arrived to establish airfield operations to support Venezuela’s air traffic control, airfield management and cargo handling.

“By stepping in to help manage tower and ground operations, the airmen are clearing logistical bottlenecks,” the release says. “This critical infrastructure support ensures that vital supplies, heavy equipment, and relief personnel reach the front lines of the disaster zone as quickly and safely as possible.”

The 621st CRW, known as the “Devil Raiders,” are housed at both Joint Base McGuire-Dix Lakehurst, New Jersey, and Travis Air Force Base, California. The 621st rapidly dispatch to open airbases, coordinate air mobility operations, assist partner nations and empower joint interoperability.

The wing also provided support following an earthquake in Haiti and supported relief efforts following floods in Pakistan, both in 2010. Then in 2017, the wing helped in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria across the Southern U.S. and the Caribbean.

The Disabled American Veterans post in Sacramento, California, needed work. The small white building with blue trim and an American flag out front was built decades ago. Its heating and cooling system was ancient. The parking lot was riddled with potholes.

So when Chapter Treasurer Eldra Jackson Jr. learned they’d be getting a check for more than $39,000 from the estate of a California woman who had recently died, he was excited about tackling overdue repairs.

“It was a windfall,” said Jackson, who, like other officers at the Sacramento post, served as an unpaid volunteer.

But last fall, after Jackson reported the donation on the chapter’s annual financial report, he received a letter back from DAV national headquarters’ general counsel: The money didn’t belong to local veterans in Sacramento, it said. It belonged to the national organization, based thousands of miles away in Kentucky and backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

If the disabled veterans in Sacramento didn’t transfer the money to DAV’s national organization, the letter said, their chapter would be at risk.

“We’re doing the best we can to service veterans in our community,” said Chapter Commander Gilbert Tafoya, an Air Force veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. “When all that is taken away, there’s something wrong.”

It may seem odd to see such a bitter dispute inside an organization built to serve disabled veterans. But the frustration that local vets in Sacramento feel toward their national organization isn’t unique. In interviews with DAV members from a dozen chapters in eight states, veterans told The War Horse that the national organization offered little financial support for their work with local veterans. But, they said, they felt DAV was quick to suspend or shut down small volunteer chapters over paperwork errors or requests for help with financial issues.

Local disabled veterans say that makes it harder to support veterans in their communities, whether by helping them navigate the notoriously complex Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims process, driving them to VA hospital appointments, or giving them a place to gather for Thanksgiving dinner with others who have served.

At the heart of this tension is a larger question facing America’s legacy veterans organizations: How do they serve veterans when the local post model that sustained them for generations is fading?

As the ranks of Korean and Vietnam War veterans thin, so do the member rolls of organizations such as DAV, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Younger veterans are less likely to join local posts, and groups like DAV are increasingly shifting toward national advocacy, online programming, and lobbying in Washington, D.C.

But in Sacramento and DAV chapters across the country, veterans say that sustaining local posts, where aging veterans can find community and purpose, should remain part of that mission.

“You’re supposed to be helping disabled veterans,” Jackson said. “All disabled veterans.”

Veteran Organization Membership Declines

Founded in 1920, Disabled American Veterans is a sprawling organization. More than 1,100 local chapters report to state departments, which in turn answer to the national branch.

“What DAV does at the national level, combined with what happens at the chapter level, that’s the life-changing impact,” said Dan Clare, DAV’s chief communications officer. “The chapters are feeding us veterans who need justice, who are not getting their benefits.”

DAV members typically pay dues to the national organization—topping out at $325 for a lifetime membership—and often join local chapters, where volunteers provide much of the hands-on support that veterans receive in their communities.

“We’re the grassroot. We do the work. We reach the veterans,” said Ace Taylor, a former commander of a local post near Salem, Virginia. His post was suspended by the Virginia state DAV in 2023 after, he said, he reported financial problems under the previous commander. The chapter, which was near a VA hospital, hosted veterans for meals and provided a space to relax between appointments.

The post “was a big part of the community,” Taylor said.

But DAV membership has been falling. In 2025, DAV had just over 900,000 members. In 2012, it had 1.2 million members, according to its earliest publicly available annual report. Clare, the DAV spokesperson, said the reduction in DAV’s membership was due to the organization cleaning up membership rolls to better reflect lifetime members. Meanwhile, larger veterans groups such as The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars also struggle with membership. The American Legion, for instance, dropped from more than 2 million members in 2016 to 1.4 million last year.

American veterans are a shrinking population—VA estimates that the number of veterans will fall by about 30% over the next 20 years. Younger veterans, pulled by the demands of jobs and children, may have less free time to join volunteer groups. And, at least for some, veterans organizations like DAV seem like relics from another era.

“It’s part of a long decline of civic organizations in our country,” said Stephen Ortiz, a historian who studies veterans organizations at Binghamton University, The State University of New York.

“Since the Gulf War, you’ve had the internet, and since then social media, and that has for many Americans replaced the sense of connection from intensely local places to completely global places.”

Growing Coffers But Little Local Support

As membership in DAV has shrunk, however, the national organization’s coffers have grown. According to IRS filings, in 2024, DAV headquarters had net assets of more than $530 million. That’s up from about $289 million a decade earlier.

That’s not the entire financial picture, said Laurie Styron, the head of CharityWatch, a nonprofit watchdog that recently released an analysis of DAV financials.

DAV’s national structure also includes two affiliated organizations: DAV National Service Foundation and DAV Charitable Service Trust—which shares money and personnel among them, according to tax filings and audited financial statements. For instance, DAV charged the National Service Foundation and the Charitable Service Trust more than $100,000 each in 2024 for help with administering their business operations and fundraising. DAV’s top executive, National Adjutant Barry Jesinoski, is listed as vice president of both affiliated groups.

“They sort of give this illusion of separation,” Styron said. “But really, this organization is sharing all of these people. It’s sharing financial transactions.”

Styron said the overlapping structure makes it difficult for donors to know where their money goes.

The three organizations had a combined $750 million in adjusted net assets and about $171 million in cash expenses in 2024, according to CharityWatch’s analysis.

Asked about CharityWatch’s assertion that DAV’s structure makes donor transparency difficult, Clare called the watchdog group a “fringe evaluator.”

“CharityWatch likes to go after organizations like DAV because we have a good reputation and they can spark outrage,” the DAV spokesperson said. “This is their racket.”

Clare said DAV’s three different national organizations serve different purposes within the non-profit. And he pointed to the organization’s wide-ranging programs as evidence of its impact, both at the national and local level: helping to get veterans more than $33 billion in VA benefits last year, hosting job fairs and entrepreneur bootcamps, and successful legislative efforts. In 2022, for example, DAV helped push through the PACT Act, which expanded VA benefits to millions of vets who were exposed to toxic chemicals in the military.

But little of the organization’s money flows down to local chapters.

Even though members pay up to $325 for a lifetime DAV membership, local chapters only receive a small amount of that—currently no more than $3.50 per member annually, or just over 1% of lifetime dues, according to a recent DAV memo to chapter commanders. Chapters can also apply for grants from a national trust.

A War Horse analysis of tax filings found that, over the five tax years from 2019 through 2023, Disabled American Veterans’ national organizations gave nearly $1.9 million to DAV’s California department.

During that same period, the California department awarded $175,000 in grants to dozens of local chapters across the state.

“You’re raising this money on the behalf of disabled veterans,” said Rodney Deflumeri, a former chapter commander in Florida who resigned in February after examining DAV’s finances. “Why is there just [this] little tiny trickle?”

Packing Up History

On a cloudy Tuesday in May, the DAV post in Sacramento was in disarray. Storage bins sat half-filled with old plaques. Black-and-white photographs littered the tables.

In December, the Sacramento chapter sued DAV National, asking a court to prevent the national organization from taking the donation. Days later, chapter leaders learned their bank account had been emptied and their DAV charter revoked, according to court documents.

“In light of your contentious actions,” Jesinoski, DAV National’s CEO, wrote in a letter to Tafoya, “you are not permitted to participate in DAV or Auxiliary activities in the future.”

Sacramento veterans also learned that people acting on behalf of DAV’s national organization were trying to begin the process of selling the small Sacramento building, according to court documents.

Tafoya and Jackson hope the lawsuit will stop the sale and protect the chapter. But they don’t want to risk losing the chapter’s history if the case doesn’t go their way. So they’re packing up more than a century’s worth of memorabilia and moving it out.

“It’s going into protective custody,” said Charles Anthony, a chapter member who served in both the Army and the Air Force as a military police officer.

In court documents, DAV said the Sacramento chapter violated a policy requiring all donations from wills be submitted to the national organization, which would then determine whether it would go to the local group or the national branch.

Tafoya said he first learned of the policy last summer, when DAV officially adopted it into its bylaws. That was nearly a year after the Sacramento chapter learned it was getting the nearly $40,000 donation, following a California probate court order.

In interviews with The War Horse, members of local chapters said DAV’s national organization was quick to suspend chapters that made financial or paperwork errors. After DAV enacted new requirements last year that chapters file their annual financial reports online, DAV headquarters suspended 399 of its chapters for failing to comply with the organization’s bylaws—more than a third of U.S. chapters.

“We have to comply with governance, whether that’s at the chapter level, the state level, or the national level,” Clare said. Most chapters have since been reinstated, he said.

But members said they are frustrated that the national organization moves quickly to punish paperwork errors while offering little financial support. Local chapters are barred from raising money online, a restriction national leaders say is intended to prevent chapters from competing with one another for donations.

“We end up at Walmart, giving out little flowers or something like that,” said Jim Ulinski, a Vietnam War veteran in Pennsylvania who survived the siege of Khe Sanh. “You have to just stand there, and hopefully they give you money.”

Serving Close to Home

In March, Sacramento members received letters informing them that their memberships had been transferred to a different branch in Carmichael, about 30 minutes east of their old post. Most have decided not to attend meetings there. They want to serve veterans closer to home.

Phil Rios was an art student organizing anti-war protests when he was drafted at the height of the Vietnam War. He went on to serve for 26 years. He found his way to the little white building in Sacramento while trying to file a disability claim with VA for post-traumatic stress disorder. He was denied three times over 14 years before he finally received benefits.

Rios said fellow veterans in Sacramento were the ones who pushed him to keep trying and helped him eventually win his claim. So he began volunteering with the chapter himself, helping other vets with PTSD file claims of their own.

“I go to the guy’s house,” Rios said. “He knows I’ve been there—Vietnam, Desert Storm. I’ve seen what he’s seen. I can finish his sentence. And if he breaks down, he’s home, he’s not embarrassed. And then he opens up.”

Chapter members know younger veterans aren’t joining organizations like DAV the way earlier generations did. But they had been looking to the future all the same. They had recently invested in audio equipment to start a podcast, switched to membership applications that could be completed on a smartphone, and Tafoya said, were developing a plan to transfer leadership to a younger generation.

Instead, they were packing photos into boxes and feeling abandoned.

As disabled veterans, they had joined DAV to help support fellow veterans in their community.

“My care and concern has always been about my brothers and sisters. They wore the green uniform. They wore the boots,” said Vaughn Evans, who served in the Army for 24 years.

“It stinks to all ends that this is something that is being done to us by our own brothers and sisters.”

As Air Force Maj. Jason Watson ascended the Capitol steps last week wearing his military uniform and armed with one protest sign, he knew the risks and was prepared for the consequences, no matter how severe.

Watson, 40, a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate with 17 years on active duty, stood on the steps of the House of Representatives in roughly 100-degree weather on July 1, silently holding a sign that read “Impeach Convict Remove” to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

After standing on the steps for approximately three minutes, Capitol Police arrested Watson under Washington, D.C., code 22-1307 Crowding, Obstructing and Incommoding because he was demonstrating on the steps without a member of Congress to accompany him.

“I think you can’t help but be struck by the contrast of someone who is upholding the highest level of commitment to their oath to call out a tyrannical and illegal administration being arrested, while so many of those actors continue in seats of power with impunity,” Jessica Denson, founder of the Removal Coalition, told Military Times.

The Removal Coalition is a political activist movement that organized the demonstration after Watson contacted Denson earlier this year, looking to become involved.

His arrest did not come as a surprise to those who assisted Watson in the protest’s conception or even to the major himself, Denson told Military Times.

After his arrest

Watson foresaw the possibility of arrest and was prepared for it, as seen through his calm demeanor and acceptance of the arrest in the video footage of the event.

After his arrest, Watson was transferred from Capitol Police custody to the Metropolitan Police Department and was held overnight in jail at Central Cell Block in Northwest D.C., Denson confirmed.

The following day, Watson was transferred to D.C. Superior Court and brought to Moultrie Courthouse, where a hopeful Denson awaited his release.

Denson was optimistic that after his arrest, Watson would be momentarily released from the courthouse, given that the D.C. attorney’s office dropped their charges against him. But that feeling was short-lived.

“He was never released from custody, he was whisked away from the courthouse directly into Air Force custody,” Denson said.

Air Force major arrested on Capitol steps during protest calling for Trump impeachment

The D.C. Office of Attorney General confirmed to Military Times that the city’s charges were dropped but did not specify when.

While she waited in the courthouse, Denson was not alone. Agents from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations were also there, telling Denson they were only present to assure there was a warm handoff, which refers to the transfer of a case between OSI and other military agencies.

“There was a sergeant there who basically represented to me that she was just there to make sure that he was well fed and clothed and had a hotel to go to, all those things,” Denson said.

Denson said that all the people she spoke to identified themselves with OSI. She questioned whether this was part of a court-martialing process, and they told her “absolutely not,” she said.

As they all sat in a U.S. Marshals’ office awaiting Watson, Denson was asked to leave because she was neither his attorney nor a family member. The OSI agents were allowed to remain, she said.

Before Watson’s continuing legal counsel was available, he was represented by another lawyer who also arrived at the courthouse. That lawyer did not get the opportunity to speak with Watson in person, because moments later, Watson was already in a van leaving with the OSI agents.

OSI officials referred Military Times to the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs office, which denied to comment on the interaction.

Where is Watson now?

Watson is currently on leave from his commission post as a logistics readiness officer in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

From the D.C. courthouse, he was taken to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, located in Southwest Washington, D.C., a Level I confinement facility. Level I facilities are minimum security, short-term holdings and are meant to house inmates, both pre- and post-trial, serving sentences of one year or less.

His superior placed him under a gag order the afternoon of July 2, Denson said.

Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling officials referred Military Times to the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs office.

An Air Force spokesperson confirmed that Watson is restricted to the base within “specified geographic limits while performing military duties.” The spokesperson did not elaborate on the measures of the limits.

Denson, who first spoke with Watson to set up the protest back in February, remained in the D.C. courthouse working to secure him legal counsel. Before the day ended, his lawyer, Chris Mutimer of Monument Legal, was able to meet him on base.

Mutimer, who is representing Watson alongside Maj. Heather Bruha of the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps, told Military Times that as of Tuesday afternoon, no charges had been formally filed. But Watson is under investigation for several articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including conspiracy, contempt toward officials, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming of an officer and conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.

The Air Force confirmed Thursday that no charges had been filed.

Under UCMJ, active-duty members are forbidden from participating in partisan political acts, especially while in uniform. Consequences can include criminal or administrative punishments, such as punitive discharges, courts-martial or imprisonment.

Mutimer said that Watson is restricted to the Air Force base but not in confinement. He said that his representation is in contact with his command about the terms of the restriction and whether it can be modified or lifted as the investigation continues.

He said the representation is focused on ensuring the process is fair and that any order or restriction is clear and lawful and that “investigation proceeds on the facts rather than the surrounding politics.”

“Maj. Watson is doing well. He understood what he was risking when he spoke out, and he’s prepared to face whatever comes of this, including the possibility of a court-martial. That hasn’t wavered,” Mutimer said.

‘Just A. Nobody’

Watson first reached out to Denson in February. He did not reveal his identity, but instead signed off on his emails as “Just A. Nobody,” a moniker that he has repeated time and time again, most recently during his speech last week before his protest on the Capitol steps.

“If just a nobody like me can take a stand for our Constitution and our democratic republic, then you can too. I hope you will join me in the defense of our republic,” he said in his speech.

Previously, Watson protested anonymously through a hunger strike on the Capitol for 22 days, but it did not garner much attention. He sat with his entire body covered in white clothing topped with sunglasses and a white hat.

Denson said Watson was building momentum for an identity reveal, but he needed a vehicle to do so. That’s where she came in.

Initially, Watson’s plan was for a large protest, but Denson believed it would not be enough to hold attention. Instead, she suggested a press conference and a solitary demonstration with a captive audience on Capitol Hill.

Those involved, including Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, and partner organizations, kept it under wraps and advertised it only as an “unprecedented act of civil disobedience” out of concern that Watson would be stopped before being able to protest.

Denson said Watson was “eager” and did not hesitate to don his uniform for the protest. In a pre-taped interview with Denson on her “Lights On” YouTube channel published the day of the protest, Watson chose to wear civilian attire because he didn’t want anyone to feel he was “co-opting the uniform.”

He chose to wear his uniform on the steps of the Capitol to showcase its symbolism and the oath of office it represents, Denson said.

On the day of Watson’s arrest, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink posted on social media, saying he expects every airmen and guardian to comply with all laws and policies that dictate personal conduct, political participation and the uniform’s wear.

“The Department takes allegations of misconduct seriously, including any that might undermine the nonpartisan nature of our military,” Meink wrote.

“Pursuant to a thorough investigation — which will proceed unimpeded — commanders will ensure appropriate disposition when holding service members accountable in accordance with military law and due process,” he concluded.

Barely a year later, the California native found himself part of a small reaction force advancing through thick jungle near Duc Phong in Phuoc Long Province, in response to Vietnamese communist soldiers threatening another American platoon. What followed was a counterattack that put D Company in jeopardy, in which Alvarado played a vital role.

As his platoon moved toward the ongoing fight, Alvarado detected enemy movement and opened fire. In spite his swift reaction, he and his troopers found themselves pinned down by heavy small arms fire and blocked from joining the endangered platoon they’d come to assist. It soon became clear that a large, well-armed component of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was targeting his platoon for overrunning as well as the men they were trying to rescue.

Alvarado’s next action was to charge forward through a storm of machine gun fire in order to engage the enemy. Suddenly, a grenade exploded nearby, wounding and temporarily stunning him. Regaining his wits, however, he killed the North Vietnamese grenadier just as another barrage wounded him again. Nevertheless, he continued his forward crawl under heavy fire to pull several wounded comrades back within the perimeter they had hastily formed.

Evaluating the situation and deciding his unit needed to break away from the larger enemy force, he began maneuvering forward alone to cover the disengagement.

Although he was knocked to the ground repeatedly by exploding satchel charges, he continued advancing and firing, using his rifle and grenades to silence several PAVN positions, including a machine gun nest. Taking shelter in a dangerous forward position, he persistently laid suppressive fire on the enemy until the communists, rather than his platoon, broke contact.

Just afterward, however, his comrades-in-arms discovered that he had succumbed from his wounds. He left behind a wife and daughter.

The engagement at Duc Phong cost D Company four men killed and 26 wounded. Alvarado’s all-out, ultimately sacrificial role in saving his platoon from possible disaster did not go unnoticed among his fellow Air Cav troops.

“I was Leonard’s squad leader,” remarked William Lytle during an interview. “Us, as surviving members of the 2nd platoon, never forgot him on this day.”

Alvarado was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, as well as the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal with “V” device.

A re-evaluation of his record, however, made it clear that his sacrifice had been underrated. With the passing of the Defense Authorization Act, his daughter, Lenora, was called to the White House in Washington, D.C. on March 18, 2014, to see his DSC upgraded and receive the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama. His remains rest in his home turf, at the Greenlawn Cemetery in Bakersfield.

The mistake was “an isolated and highly unprecedented anomaly,” officials announced in a July 7 release.

“Following the recent technical sergeant 26E6 promotion cycle release, an enlisted promotions team member at Air Force Personnel Center discovered that an outdated scoring key was used for the 3P071 (security forces) Specialty Knowledge Test,” officials stated.

Air Force officials conducted a full re-score for all 2,285 security forces promotion eligibles and identified 135 airmen who should not have been selected.

“The re-score also identified 135 new selects,” the release stated, “who will be notified tentatively one week following senior rater notification to erroneous selects.”

The 3PO career field had a quota of 586 promotions for the 26E6 promotion cycle, out of a field of 2,285 3PO promotion eligibles. The 586 total remains after the re-scoring conducted for all the promotion eligibles.

Of those, 451 were not affected and will retain their line number.

“We owe it to those affected to address it immediately,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David R. Wolfe said in a press release announcing the correction. “This is going to be hard for everyone impacted.”

Those who were incorrectly selected for promotion are being notified by leadership following a July 7 message to senior raters sent, officials said.

Air Force Personnel Center will conduct an out-of-cycle, in -system supplemental promotion release the week of July 13, officials said. Those selected from the re-scoring will have a 0.5 added to their line number, which won’t affect promotion timelines, officials said.

The erroneous promotion cycle was the result of human error, officials said, with no artificial intelligence products involved in that process.

Wolfe held a call for wing command chiefs with affected members to discuss the situation, and to “direct personal engagement between security forces leadership and members impacted by the promotion error,” officials said.

Leadership were also provided a hotline to field follow-up questions.

In the wake of the mishap, Air Education and Training Command and Air Force Personnel Center have taken steps to strengthen their internal processes, officials said.

“Can you imagine the depression for those that were told they made it and now they will be told they have not,” wrote one commenter nicknamed Charming Apricot 9151 on the popular Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page.