It was introduced to make civilians feel comfortable with what the military asks of its service members, shifting focus from the human beings carrying the weight to the audience watching them carry it.

America loves the perfect military family hanging in photos around the world: a service member reuniting with a supportive spouse and resilient kids — all smiles, happy tears and beautifully curated.

America kills to see a happy homecoming. We watch from the safety of our couches as loved ones run to embrace their hero.

I’ve lived that photo. I am that supportive wife who is proud of this life and its honorable purpose. My husband looks good in his flight suit, and my kids are strong as hell.

The issue isn’t the photo; it’s what exists outside the frame. The reality lives in the go-bag in the closet, tearful goodbyes, moldy base housing, paychecks stretched thin, deteriorating mental health and the solo-parenting that spouses do every day.

The photo op can’t hold it.

The reality lives within the human beings inside those uniforms: the service member who is scared, exhausted or living with post-traumatic stress disorder; the children who don’t understand; and the spouse who is angry because she has skin in the game.

We’ve decided the image of the hero is more important than the human wearing the uniform. The support is loud until they step out of the frame. The second they show exhaustion, fear or disagreement, support turns into silence, or worse, an accusation: “You signed up for this.”

Yes, we did, and proudly. But nobody signed up to have their basic humanity stripped away to become America’s pretty patriotism prop.

The second a service member says, “I am exhausted,” “My mental health is failing,” or “This policy is broken,” their limits become an inconvenience, and they are written off as a threat to morale. When a spouse speaks up about mold or destructive deployment schedules, she is framed as “ungrateful” and warned she’ll ruin her partner’s career. The institution offers performative “help” through commissions far removed from daily realities, while kids become collateral damage in a system that values silence over empathy.

The proof is in the current events section of every government-run newspaper. It’s just not the story the institution wants you to hear.

When asked if the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was getting too long, the response was, “Not nearly long enough.” When sailors and families raised legitimate alarms about mental health, leadership brushed it off, managed optics and expected everyone to endure. When independent press like Stars and Stripes exposes messy realities, they’re handled — shattering the illusion that service members are lethal war machines, rather than humans with limits.

When active-duty officers like Major Jason Watson raise their voice on the Capitol steps, leadership doesn’t ask why; they immediately condemn. Challenging broken policy is treated as a personal insult to fragile leadership that cares more about rank and optics than humanity. By hyper-focusing on protocol, leadership hands itself a convenient shield: It’s easier to court-martial a man than answer the uncomfortable questions he brought with him.

Which brings me back to the man in the flight suit.

My loyalty belongs to my husband, not an institution that sees him as a disposable asset, nor a leadership pushing a toxic narrative over well-being. My loyalty is to the human who willingly puts on that suit and honors his oath.

Loving my husband and being a proud military spouse does not mean silent compliance. It fuels the fire because my name sits next to his on our marriage certificate, and it’s the very reason I refuse to be quiet.

I can honor his service and still look military leadership in the eye and ask, “What are you doing to him?”

What happens to him directly impacts our family, and I refuse to let his humanity be a bargaining chip for a public relations campaign.

If America and the Department of Defense truly want to “support our troops,” they must start taking responsibility for inconvenient consequences. Stop demanding the perfect military family and start acknowledging the human beings inside the uniform; their limits, fears, exhaustion and truth.

Debunking the war machine and seeing soldiers as human beings is the absolute minimum. Human acknowledgment isn’t simply “the right thing to do”; it’s how a successful military culture is created. When a leader chooses humanity over optics, a foundation is built on genuine trust rather than quiet burnout.

Maybe then service members and families would willingly choose 20 years instead of walking away. After all, you can only push someone to their limit before they jump ship.

Alexa LeCureux is a military spouse and writer who explores the complexities of service, patriotism and family life in the armed forces. She has spent over a decade supporting her husband’s career, first as a loadmaster and more recently as an Air Force KC-135 pilot, while raising their children in military communities across the United States and overseas. Her writing reflects the lived experience of military families and the quiet weight of life behind the uniform.

The Department of Defense wants to take that idea one step further and wield AI-generated “personalities” to mimic real people — and fool enemy AI trying to identify patterns in friendly cellphone traffic.

The goal is to mask “digital exhaust,” the metadata automatically emitted by mobile phones, such as location and specific device IDs. Intelligence agencies, law enforcement, militaries and even criminals have become adept at using this digital debris to locate users and analyze their behavior.

In particular, “accessing foreign mobile phone networks exposes individuals and organizations to surveillance and espionage threats,” warned the DoD Small Business Innovation Research solicitation, which opens Sept. 23 and closes Oct. 21.

“Adversaries can leverage this data to track daily routines, identify deviations indicating special events (e.g., VIP visits or mission preparation), and map sensitive facilities based on cell phone concentration or periods of inactivity,” the solicitation explained.

The solicitation doesn’t specifically mention AI-created people chatting on their mobiles. But DoD does envision a “digital exhaust deception system” in which AI “personas” generate cellphone signals that mimic the behavior of real people.

Each device should have a minimum of two personas, and eventually four or more. The device should weigh fewer than 2 pounds and have a battery life of up to 36 hours.

Defense startup raises $61 million to put AI into a wrist-worn display

Merely generating fake cellphone signals isn’t enough. The device must “mimic realistic patterns of life to defeat automated network analysis,” DoD said.

At a minimum, this means defeating basic traffic analysis. Ultimately, the Pentagon wants a system that can defeat behavioral tracking by advanced AI.

Phase I of the project involves creating a design concept and algorithms, as well as listing any “proprietary software required to conduct AI-enabled mission planning and operations.” Phase II will generate a prototype, followed by Phase III and delivery of “fully integrated mission management software and hardened decoy box form factors (e.g., Wi-Fi router-sized team devices and puck-sized personal devices).”

The technology could lend itself to civilian applications. A capability to obscure cell phone metadata “directly translates to protecting high-value corporate assets, personnel, and intellectual property from commercial espionage and tracking,” the solicitation states.

Analyzing signal traffic has long been a useful intelligence tool. For example, in World War II, the U.S. Navy used it to derive intelligence on Japanese naval deployment. Today, police have software that uses cell phone data to trace a user’s past movement for months.

On the other hand, traffic analysis can boomerang on its creators. Japan used decoy radio signals in 1941 to convince U.S. analysts that the Japanese fleet was at home, rather than steaming toward Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Textile experts and scientists with Navy Exchange Service Command worked on designs from Aug. 17 to Aug. 21 onboard Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story and at NEX Norfolk, Virginia, according to a Thursday release.

“We are committed to providing certified, high-quality Navy uniforms so that sailors are comfortable and professional looking so that they can focus on their mission,” Brianna Plummer, Group Leader of Design & Testing Laboratories at Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility, said in the announcement.

Service members tried on prototype slacks, shirts and jumper tops, gaining an understanding of which sizes work best for them while experts with the fit clinic took measurements and learned how the new uniforms work alongside a newer numeric sizing system.

Experts will now utilize the intel collected to make decisions on future sizing recommendations, the Navy said.

The service has made a point to modernize its female uniforms, having already rolled out new service khaki slacks with back pockets and summer and dress female white overblouses over the past year.

The Navy Exchange Service Command’s Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility has been at the helm of those efforts, announcing its first uniform updates in September 2024, as part of the Size Modernization Program.

The program was designed to address issues female sailors have had in the past with fit and comfort.

The unemployment rate for all veterans also came down from 4.2% in July to 3.4% in August — compared to the overall unemployment rate of 4.1%. This comes as the economy rebounded from the negative job creation numbers recorded in July, when employers shed 23,000 jobs.

The 162,000 jobs added in August blew past most analysts’ expectations of 53,000 jobs, and also gave evidence of the economy’s resilience in the face of war with Iran, rising gas and diesel prices and a new tariff war with Canada.

The surge was led by employment in food services and bars, which added 59,000 jobs in August, compared to the average monthly gain of 12,000 jobs in food services and bars over the previous 12 months, the BLS report said.

Local government schools added 42,000 jobs in August while “employment in manufacturing continued its upward trend” by adding 16,000 jobs in August — bringing the total of manufacturing jobs added this year to 58,000, the BLS report noted.

President Donald Trump quickly seized on the latest BLS numbers as an example of his administration’s success in managing the economy that he said should lead the Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates at its next Open Market Committee meeting on Sept. 15-16.

“Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago!” Trump said. “A STRONG COUNTRY MEANS A LOWER INTEREST RATE - IT’S A BETTER CREDIT…Very simple! We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World, like ‘the old days.’”

The main takeaway from the latest jobs report was that “it’s a lot easier to get a job [now] than it was a year ago,” said Heather Long, chief economist for the Navy Federal Credit Union. In a phone interview with Military Times, Long noted the 21,000 construction jobs added in August to cope with the demand for new data centers.

The concern for Long, however, was that wage gains were not keeping up with the rate of inflation. Wages rose 3.1% in August while inflation stood at 3.4%, she noted.

The turnaround in the jobs market has been a boon for veterans looking for work in what has been described as a “low hire, low fire” economy, said Kevin Rasch, a retired Navy Commander and the Warriors to Work Regional Director for the Wounded Warrior Project.

“We’re seeing success in placing Warriors,” he said in a telephone interview with Military Times. “The system seems to be working like it should” and it also “seems like what we’re doing is working.”

“We’re investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know,” Vance told reporters during a White House press briefing.

“If we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran, when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them,” Vance added.

Iranian officials say four people died and nearly 70 were wounded by a strike that hit a home during a wedding. Iranian state TV reported on Thursday that a fifth person, a 22-year-old woman, had since died at a hospital.

The U.S. military has said it was aware of the Iranian reports but that it “never targets civilians.”

On Wednesday, the Pentagon posted the “Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization” on its website. By Thursday, the memo and an accompanying statement from spokesperson Sean Parnell had been removed.

“The draft (document) published on September 2, 2026, has been temporarily rescinded to allow for updates,” the official said, adding that interim guidance remains in effect.

The detailed clinical guidelines had laid out separate testosterone deficiency screening paths for men and women that were to happen during their annual health assessments.

The guidance was set to take effect immediately, and the ​Pentagon said it is aimed at improving military readiness by ​identifying and managing hormonal and energy-availability issues.

“Page Not Found” appeared on websites for both the Pentagon and Defense Health Agency when clicking on links for the memo and statement.

Wednesday’s guidance said that men aged 30 and older would be screened through a questionnaire that could then trigger a blood test for testosterone levels and, if needed, testosterone hormone therapy.

Women would also be screened through a questionnaire, which could then move to treatment for conditions related to hormonal imbalance. Testosterone would be used in women only for one of the diagnoses for which there is evidence of efficacy, such as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, characterized by a distressing level of low sexual interest.

The Sept. 2 guidance, signed by DHA Director Vice Adm. Darin Via, establishes clinical pathways for female hormonal optimization and lays out when a woman should receive additional evaluation, what conditions providers should consider and when treatment or referral is warranted.

A female Marine interviewed by Military Times said low testosterone can occur in women but can be harder to identify because women normally have much lower testosterone levels than men.

“Low testosterone isn’t really a problem that affects women the same way as it affects men,” the Marine said.

Unlike the mandatory testosterone blood testing for male service members aged 30 and older, the female pathway begins with an annual clinical screen for hormonal dysregulation during the Periodic Health Assessment, or PHA.

Testosterone

DHA identifies fatigue, musculoskeletal pain and changes in menstrual patterns, including cycles longer than 35 days, as signs that should prompt a targeted assessment for Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or RED-S.

DHA says military operational demands, fitness standards and occupational stressors can increase the risk of RED-S, a condition associated with low energy availability that can contribute to bone-stress injuries, impaired endocrine function and lost operational readiness.

If the initial assessment does not indicate concern for RED-S, no further evaluation is required under the DHA guidance. If concern remains, active-duty service members are referred to their primary care managers for further assessment and treatment.

The next step can include a validated screening tool such as the Low Energy Availability in Females Questionnaire, followed by the International Olympic Committee’s RED-S Clinical Assessment Tool Version 2. That assessment places service members into four risk categories, ranging from low risk, with unrestricted training and duties, to high risk, where limited duty, medical profiling or hospitalization may be necessary.

DHA also recognizes that one of the most visible indicators of RED-S can be obscured by treatment and notes that functional hypothalamic amenorrhea can be masked by hormonal contraception.

At the same time, menstrual-cycle and sex-hormone indicators are not scored in the RED-S assessment for women taking thyroid or sex-hormone-altering medications, including hormonal contraceptives.

When RED-S is suspected, clinicians can order blood tests including a complete blood count, comprehensive metabolic panel, ferritin, iron studies, vitamin B12 and thyroid-stimulating hormone. For women with prolonged or absent menstruation, pregnancy testing and additional hormone testing may be ordered when clinically indicated.

Treatment focuses first on correcting the underlying energy deficit, which can mean increasing dietary energy intake, reducing training volume or both. DHA also calls for attention to protein, carbohydrates, calcium and vitamin D, with psychological support when disordered eating, body-image concerns or performance pressures are involved.

Female service members aged 35 and older who report clinically significant symptoms of perimenopause or menopause are to be assessed for whether those symptoms affect operational duties or quality of life. If they do — or if the service member requests education or treatment — the provider is to refer her to a midlife-transition specialist.

That specialist could be an obstetrician-gynecologist, certified nurse midwife, women’s health nurse practitioner, endocrinologist or primary care provider trained in perimenopause and menopause care. If appropriate expertise is unavailable locally, DHA directs providers to its Midlife Telehealth Hub.

A Navy hospital corpsman interviewed by Military Times, says the military standard should remain the ability to perform the job.

“As long as they are fit for duty, any medically optional test they would like to have is fine for me personally,” she said. “If a testosterone treatment makes you fit for duty, then great, get in there.”

The DHA guidance addresses testosterone treatment for women within a narrow clinical context, citing the 2019 Global Consensus Position Statement on testosterone therapy, which identifies Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, or HSDD, in postmenopausal women as the only evidence-based indication for testosterone therapy in women.

The guidance does not establish a testosterone blood-test threshold for diagnosing HSDD. Instead, it calls for a clinical assessment, consideration of other causes and shared decision-making between the patient and provider.

DHA says available evidence does not demonstrate a benefit from testosterone therapy for psychological well-being, depressive symptoms, cognitive performance, cardiovascular outcomes, bone mineral density, or muscle mass and performance. Evidence for treating HSDD with testosterone in perimenopausal women remains limited, according to the guidance.

For a postmenopausal service member with a distressing decline in sexual function, DHA recommends addressing other possible causes before considering testosterone. If treatment is chosen, it is off-label: The guidance recommends one-tenth of an FDA-approved male 1% testosterone cream or gel.

Those undergoing treatment will have their testosterone levels checked three to six weeks after treatment begins or after a dose increase, with the goal of keeping levels within the normal premenopausal female range.

DHA recommends stopping treatment after six months if there is no demonstrated benefit. For women who remain on treatment, the guidance calls for clinical evaluation and testosterone testing every four to six months.

The agency also cautions that safety data for physiologic testosterone treatment in women do not extend beyond 24 months and recommends caution for women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer or high cardiometabolic risk.

The guidance takes effect immediately and expires one year after its Sept. 2 signature unless DHA reissues or cancels it earlier.

Among these ideas, none have been more controversial than the proposed Trump-class battleship.

Proponents argue that this new capital ship would bring concentrated fighting power with new high-tech weapons and large magazines that could fight independently and also withstand substantial punishment in battle. With its currently planned nuclear propulsion, moreover these behemoths could patrol for extended periods without the need to refuel.

Critics have taken aim at the project’s enormous expense, as well as the feasibility of the proposed design that is characterized as over-ambitious.

Into this roiling debate, it is instructive to survey a rather different perspective: What do the Chinese make of this project? An Aug. 21 article in China National Defense News [中国国防报] provides some initial insights into how America’s chief global rival is assessing this potentially major change in direction for the U.S. Navy surface fleet.

This article, published in an official paper of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) does note that the ship could have the advantages that “large vessels can continue to execute certain combat missions even when communications are jammed, and their hulls offer superior damage resistance compared to small or medium-sized ships.” It notes that smaller, distributed platforms could overly “rely on stable data links.” In addition, it’s worth observing that this rendering does note that the planned U.S. battleship would have nuclear propulsion, and would possibly also carry nuclear-armed missiles.

Nevertheless, the Chinese analysis, mirroring many Western evaluations, is suffused with ample skepticism.

For 15 Trump-class battleships built between 2028 and 2056, the costs would amount to $275 billion, with the lead class carrying the price tag of $23.4 billion. The report says that cost is 55% higher due to the change from conventional to nuclear propulsion and terms this price as “exorbitant.” Illustrating some familiarity with nuclear power issues, the analysis adds that “nuclear waste disposal and vessel dismantling following retirement are not included” in the $275 billion estimate.

“Unfinalized designs and insufficient technological maturity” are also flagged as potential major problem that may cause delays and cost overruns. Potentially carrying rail guns, hypersonic weapons, as well as lasers, this critique seems quite valid. As the PLA assessment states: “This ‘build the platform first, install equipment later’ approach could increase the risks.” The piece cites the examples of the both the Zumwalt-class destroyer and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as relevant examples of recent problematic programs.

Notably, the Chinese article is also particularly attuned to potential shifts in the basic U.S. Navy warfighting doctrinal paradigm.

The article observes: “This design differs from the Distributed Maritime Operations concept that the U.S. Navy has been advancing in recent years. The theory of distributed maritime operations emphasizes the dispersal of detection, command, and strike capabilities across multiple nodes … to mitigate the impact that damage to a few large vessels would have on the entire formation.”

In a closely related point, the PLA article also broaches the question of whether large surface combatants are simply too vulnerable to quiet submarines, hypersonic missiles, and “drone swarms.”

Apparently quite aware of major difficulties in U.S. shipbuilding, the Chinese military assessment adds that leading American shipyards “are currently facing average delays of five years, with the delivery cycle for a single ship extending from approximately five years in the early 2000’s to about eleven years today.”

Noting that the new battleship program could have cascading results for other high priority U.S. Navy programs, the article concludes: “Assembly of nuclear-powered battleships … could further slow the construction of aircraft carriers and submarines.” These Chinese strategists are no doubt aware such a delay would further impact the Asia-Pacific naval balance.

China itself has indicated interest in nuclear-powered surface vessels. Thus, they have thoroughly investigated the newly renovated Russian battle cruiser Admiral Nakihimov.

Yet it is would be foolhardy to invest in such ambitious platforms for the U.S. Navy at a time when the service confronts so many shipbuilding challenges and when the nation also faces an inevitable process of belt-tightening. Perhaps some of America’s allies can experiment with the new battleship concept. But the U.S. Navy will be well advised to go toward its time-tested strengths, especially in undersea warfare, but also in the emergent domain of drones.

Overall, America’s sea service must bring its force structure into alignment with a new strategy appropriate to the multipolar world that involves reducing expensive “presence” missions and embracing more cost-effective hedging.

That will most likely mean a less high-profile role for surface combatants and thus recognizing the reality that the Trump-class battleship will most likely never get built.

Certainly, this Chinese military article implies that at least some Chinese strategists are eager for the U.S. to pursue that extravagant project, knowing that it is folly and would thus weaken Beijing’s chief rival.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

Iran’s health minister said 18 people were killed and 108 wounded in Tuesday night’s U.S. strikes across Iran. The Iranian Red Crescent said four people were killed and 67 wounded at a wedding ceremony near the coast of the Strait of Hormuz.

The return of combat operations has alarmed countries throughout the region, as Iran launched missile and drone attacks against what it said were U.S. assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq.

The guns had largely gone silent since the previous exchange in July, although peace talks failed to advance in the interim. President Donald Trump threatened to unleash yet more military force, even though the war is unpopular at home and has driven up the cost of gasoline.

Iran, for its part, has remained defiant, despite suffering heavy military and economic losses.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply alarmed by reports of civilian casualties, including a strike that reportedly hit a wedding ceremony in Iran,” and called for an immediate cessation of military action, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

“The Secretary General condemns all attacks against civilians. He recalls that all parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution,” Dujarric said.

The deaths would be in addition to the 3,636 people documented as killed in Iran as of April 7, including 1,701 civilians, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent Iranian rights group.

The U.S. has reported 18 military personnel killed and more than 750 wounded.

“We are aware of reports, which originated from Iranian state media. The U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” U.S. Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for the U.S. military’s Central Command, said in an email.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society released video showing debris strewn on the ground next to a building with a large hole in the roof, accompanied by still images showing people, some in Red Crescent vests, at a damaged building and a utility tower lying on the ground.

Reuters was able to verify the location using satellite imagery, which showed the fallen tower was 136 metres (149 yards) from the damaged building.

The wedding incident recalled the blast at a school in Minab that killed 160 people at a girls’ school on the first day of the war.

The Pentagon has yet to issue an official finding on the Minab strike, which would be the U.S. military’s largest civilian casualty incident in decades. It may have been the ‌result of U.S. use of outdated targeting data, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Democratic members of the U.S. Congress have called on the administration to release findings of its investigation of the incident, but the report has not been sent to lawmakers.

Lawmakers demand Pentagon release findings from probe of Iran school strike

U.S. defenders of the Iran war also point to civilian deaths that resulted from Iranian attempts to put down street protests that embroiled the country in December and January, before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. HRANA has put that death toll at more than 7,000, while Iranian exile groups claim the number is much higher.

Trump has cited an incentive for Iranians to overthrow their government as one reason for the war, in addition to seeking to halt Iran’s nuclear program and ending its support for militant groups abroad such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Iran has also responded to the U.S. attacks by threatening any oil tankers that transit the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian authorization, severely curtailing traffic in a waterway that before the war carried 20% of the world’s oil supply.

VA’s original electronic health record contract had a ceiling of roughly $10 billion. The department has increased that ceiling to roughly $27 billion, an increase of about $17 billion.

The nearly $27 billion figure discussed repeatedly during Wednesday’s hearing is not money VA has already spent. It is the maximum potential value of the Oracle contract.

But the new contract ceiling is substantially higher than the ceiling on the deal VA struck with Cerner in 2018. Oracle acquired Cerner in 2022.

VA’s original contract had a ceiling of about $10 billion over 10 years. The department said at the time that the contract would replace its aging Vista system and create a common electronic health record with the Defense Department.

The issue lawmakers pressed throughout the hearing was why VA needs roughly $17 billion more under that contract.

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence offered part of the answer during Wednesday’s hearing, but not all of it.

Lawrence said VA had estimated the cost of completing the deployment through 2031, asked Oracle for a proposal and then relied on its acquisition team to negotiate the resulting contract.

But Lawrence says he was not involved in those negotiations and could not explain why Oracle’s proposal reached roughly an increase of $17 billion, how much VA negotiated from the company’s request or what specifically drove the additional cost.

Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., asked whether VA expected to hit the original contract ceiling early and whether the accelerated rollout contributed to the increase.

Lawrence said VA had “hit the ceiling as planned.”

Elsewhere in the hearing, Lawrence described problems and complexities from earlier phases of the program requiring Oracle to address those issues as the department continued the rollout.

Lawmakers did not get a detailed explanation Wednesday of exactly what those complexities were or when VA determined the original ceiling would be insufficient.

The hearing also did not establish how much of the new ceiling VA ultimately expects to spend.

Lawrence emphasized that the roughly $27 billion figure is a contract ceiling, not a $17 billion payment to Oracle. He said the contract operates on a time-and-materials basis, meaning individual work is negotiated and obligated under the ceiling.

The expanded contract encompasses more than the electronic health record itself, including software and licensing, hosting, managed services, training, testing, data migration, change management, deployment support and other work.

What did VA actually negotiate with Oracle?

Lawmakers repeatedly returned to Oracle’s previous assurances about the program’s costs.

During the hearing, members cited a 2022 statement from Oracle Health CEO Mike Sicilia that the company was prepared to bear cost overruns associated with the VA project.

Lawrence said he was aware of the statement but could not explain how it was reflected in the current contract negotiations.

He said VA would need to determine what Oracle had previously promised and how the department’s acquisition team handled those commitments.

The department also provided lawmakers with a much larger estimate for the modernization effort as a whole.

Lawrence said VA estimates it will cost about $37 billion to complete deployment through 2031, plus approximately $11 billion for sustainment, for a total of roughly $48 billion.

When Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., asked whether that was an independent estimate, Lawrence corrected himself and acknowledged that it was not.

The Government Accountability Office told the committee Wednesday that VA still has not provided an updated cost estimate or detailed documentation of its schedule sufficient for GAO to determine whether the schedule is consistent with leading practices. GAO also noted VA has fully implemented only four of its 18 recommendations related to the EHR modernization program, with 14 still not fully addressed as of August.

Members from both parties questioned the cost increase, the pace of the rollout and whether VA could demonstrate that the additional spending is producing better care.

Lawrence defended the recent deployments as an improvement over earlier phases of the program.

VA has deployed the system to 11 sites in 2026, with Cleveland and Anchorage scheduled to go live in October. The department plans 26 additional site deployments in 2027 and expects to continue deployment waves through 2031.

Lawrence said VA is using 15 “return to normal” measures to determine whether facilities have recovered after implementation, including emergency department throughput, ambulatory visits, surgeries and inpatient care.

He also said trouble tickets have declined with each successive deployment and that, at Indiana on Day 12, more than 75% of trouble tickets had been closed and validated by the end users who submitted them.

Lawmakers questioned whether those measures are enough to demonstrate that the system is working safely and effectively.

Rep. Conaway, D-N.J. raised reports that roughly 300 dermatology patients at a VA facility had their referrals canceled after implementation of the Oracle system, including patients with cancer diagnoses.

VA’s chief medical officer, Dr. Adam Evans, did not explain what had happened. Instead, he asked lawmakers to provide the information so the department could investigate.

Lawmakers question the training

Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., said VA employees had reported completing Oracle’s required training without feeling confident using the system and said some new employees had been unable to document care for two to four weeks.

Lawrence defended VA’s training requirements while acknowledging that the department continues to make changes based on feedback from recent deployments.

Throughout the session, lawmakers asked a spate of questions, including: why Oracle’s proposal for additional work came to roughly $17 billion; what VA negotiated; why taxpayers are being asked to shoulder the additional cost after Oracle’s earlier assurances about cost overruns; and how the new contract ceiling fits into VA’s broader estimate of roughly $37 billion to complete deployment and another $11 billion to sustain the system.

VA officials did not provide detailed answers to those questions during the hearing. The dissatisfaction was bipartisan.

Oracle was not there to speak for themselves. The company initially accepted an invitation to testify before the committee but later declined, citing time constraints.

Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., moved to subpoena Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison and CEO Mike Sicilia, arguing that the committee cannot perform effective oversight when the company responsible for the contract will not appear to answer questions.

Ranking Member Mark Takano, D-Calif., also questioned whether VA had resolved problems identified during earlier deployments, citing concerns from employees at the Michigan, Southern Ohio and Indiana sites.

“Employees in Michigan, Southern Ohio, and Indiana are telling us that many of the issues identified by the first six sites still have not been fixed,” Takano said.

Lawrence, meanwhile, told lawmakers he remained confident VA could complete the remaining deployments within the new contract ceiling.

“This is the money available to do the things we need to do,” Lawrence concluded.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle released his 10th C-NOte on Wednesday, saying the service needs to incorporate directed energy technology sooner rather than later to combat a threat environment in which mass-produced, low-cost drones challenge traditional munitions.

“The question is no longer whether these systems work—it is how quickly we can field them across the fleet and place them in the hands of sailors,” Caudle said. “For too long, we have viewed directed energy as an emerging technology rather than an operational capability. That must change.”

The announcement comes amid an Iran war that has seen the Navy and U.S. military at large use a significant portion of their missile interceptor stockpile while deterring ballistic missiles and drones.

The cost of using interceptors to destroy unmanned aerial systems at times exceeds the cost of the system itself, the message said.

Using lasers can help balance that ratio out.

The Navy can preserve those interceptors and other traditional ordnance for military operations that specifically require them and use directed energy to combat the proliferation of drone warfare.

This will help sustain the fight longer.

Directed energy weapons, like high-energy lasers and high-powered microwaves, can also be deployed to defeat small boats, surveillance platforms, and cruise missile threats.

The expansion of available weapons onboard the ship to include lasers will mean commanders will be tasked with deciding whether munitions or directed energy weapons are better suited for a target.

Ships will also need more electrical power to fuel the directed energy weapons, so the Navy fleet will need to consider this when designing ships for the future.

In the meantime, the continued implementation of the Containerized Capability Campaign will help accelerate the fleet’s education on using directed energy weapons, the administrative message said.

The ability to deploy the containers across multiple ships will shorten fielding timelines, streamline the installation process and allow sailors to experiment and learn the weapons.

The experience will allow service members to provide feedback that will help sharpen the Navy’s strategic usage of the weapon and help expedite the service’s development of directed energy weapons’ capabilities.

As adversaries hone their own laser weapons systems, the Navy must continue to strengthen its innovation in the field so that the lasers are combat-ready, the message said.

The containerized initiative was established by Caudle to bridge the gap between the current fleet’s limited fielding capabilities for lasers and the future. Specifically, the campaign allows for directed energy weapons to be deployed on platforms and ships without the need for major redesigns.

Caudle has previously told lawmakers that incorporating high-energy laser weapons could reduce the Navy’s reliance on missile interceptors and open up more space onboard for offensive weapons.

But bringing directed energy weapons into wider fleet use will require ships with significantly greater electrical power capacity, as well as other advances. Those requirements will need to be considered in future ship designs, Caudle said.

The body of Yu Wei Huo, 33, was found near the river’s shore, according to the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office, which said that an autopsy is pending to determine the cause of death.

HM3 Huo, from Flushing, New York, worked as a dental assistant and was stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Paris Island, the Corps confirmed.

“Out of respect for the sailor’s family and loved ones, no additional details will be released at this time,” the service said in a statement. “The Marine Corps extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and fellow service members affected by this loss.”

Last Friday, local officials asked for the public’s help finding Huo, saying that “there is concern for his safety and well-being.”

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the sailor’s death.

The former Virginia Senate candidate and special operations veteran took over the temporary role in April 2026 after the previous acting Navy secretary, John Phelan, was fired.

“I am pleased to nominate a true warrior, Hung Cao, to become the next secretary of the Navy,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “We need patriots like Hung leading our Navy and Marine Corps, and I can think of no one better than him to make sure our great Navy and Marine Corps remain the fiercest and best force the world has ever seen.”

Cao, who previously served as under secretary of the Navy, outlined his vision as acting Navy secretary in April as one focused on alpha males and alpha females, as well as on delivering a high- and low-mix of ships to fulfill the promise of the Golden Fleet.

Speaking at the Modern Day Marine exposition in Washington, D.C., Cao said he was focused on working within the confines of the Navy budget to improve ships, aircraft and equipment, while keeping an eye on maintenance.

He spoke about the importance of delivering the sixth-generation aircraft F/A-XX, the new Navy Medium Landing Ship and more amphibious transport docks.

The acting Navy secretary has also stressed the need to control the narrative and provide information about the service that instills trust within the American people. Cao established the Department of the Navy Communication Strategy in a June administrative message in an attempt to deliver on this promise.

After moving to America as a Vietnamese refugee in 1975, Cao went on to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy and serve in the military for 25 years, deploying with special operations forces to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. He also earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School.

He attempted to unseat Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in the 2024 Senate race, but lost after launching a campaign that criticized diversity and inclusion efforts in the military.

Cao acknowledged the Navy secretary nomination soon after it was announced.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Cao said in a social media post. “It’s an honor of a lifetime to lead the great warriors of the Navy and Marine Corps team. I’m grateful for your leadership and support as we continue to get after shipbuilding and ensure the defense of the homeland.”

Before taking the full-time role, the Senate must vote whether to confirm Cao’s nomination.

Not quite a technological breakthrough, military analysts say.

But the 054A frigate has advantages that are expected to raise the People’s Liberation Army Navy clout along and beyond the Chinese southeast coasts and in turn fluster nearby Taiwan and Japan – each with concerns about Beijing’s maritime activities – while putting the United States on higher alert, analysts say.

The frigate comparable to the U.S. Navy’s Constellation-class ships can operate in blue waters, meaning open seas far from its own coasts — an asset that its predecessors lacked, said David Silbey, a military historian and associate teaching professor with the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy.

Can China’s latest air-to-air missile take on its US equivalent? Definitely maybe, experts say.

China’s 054A could do anti-submarine warfare as well due to its helicopter launch features, Silbey added. Helicopters increase a warship’s submarine detection range. The frigates could be produced fast in high numbers, he added.

State media outlets reported that the frigate did a training mission on Aug. 22. Part of a PLA Eastern Theater Command flotilla, it joined other vessels for combat-related training, command coordination tests and emergency responses, state broadcaster CCTV News said.

The 054A frigates will grab attention offshore because they add to an already expanding naval fleet, experts believe.

“Taiwan is concerned about its increased anti-submarine, escort and fleet air defense capabilities around the Taiwan Strait,” said Huang Chung-ting, associate research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.

“Japan will pay attention to its activities in the East China Sea, the Miyako Strait and around the first-island chain,” Huang said, referring to Japan itself as well as other land masses between China and the open Pacific Ocean.

He said Washington would worry about whether the Chinese navy is forming a “large enough modern escort fleet” able to maintain long-term deployment in the open sea.

The frigate could become a “multiplier for bigger units in a vast array of tasks”, said Enrico Cau, an associate researcher at the Taiwan Strategy Research Association think tank.

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military drills nearby since 2022 — as Washington continues to help arm Taiwan in case of any conflict. Japan, a U.S. treaty ally, contests with China a chain of uninhabited islets and Beijing resents Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan.

Chinese media reports call the 054A, also known as the Jiangkai II, a second Ningde branded ship type after the 056 guided-missile corvette that entered service in 2016. It has little if any unique technology, analysts believe. It even comes with “limited” missile capacity, rendering it “not a particularly powerful ship,” Silbey said.

But it matters because it would bolster the navy’s overall potential, the experts said.

“I think the multirole designation allows it to cover an important gap between smaller ships designed for a limited set of littoral, coastal and short-range missions and bigger ships designed for different tasks in long range missions,” Cau said.

The nuclear-powered Lincoln, with roughly ​5,000 personnel, was involved in the U.S. naval blockade and combat operations in the war with Iran and — according to ​Democratic lawmakers — set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea.

Accompanied by other U.S. naval vessels, the Lincoln arrived early Wednesday in Thailand, the United States’ only treaty partner in mainland Southeast Asia, for rest and recuperation during a visit that Thai officials said would last five days.

By afternoon, busloads of sailors and Marines wearing civilian clothes, many smiling and waving, started arriving at a hotel in the resort city of Pattaya, about 150 km (93 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

‘Truly historic accomplishments’

“Our arrival in Laem Chabang provides a well-deserved opportunity for our Sailors and Marines to rest and recharge,” the commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, Rear Admiral Robert E. Loughran, said in a statement.

“What this strike group has accomplished is truly historic. I could not be prouder of the exceptional professionalism and expertise demonstrated by every member of this team during our operations.”

The Lincoln was deployed last November. Typically naval deployments are for between six and nine months, but those can be extended during times of conflict.

Shakeira Fairfax flew in from New Jersey and was waiting outside the Pattaya hotel to meet her 25-year-old daughter Jade, a crew member on the Lincoln.

Fairfax said there were moments during the long deployment after the start of the Iran war when morale was low, when contact was limited and she feared for her daughter’s safety.

“There was a period of silence,” she said. “It was an uncertain time, it was a scary time. It was difficult, it was definitely difficult, but she has a support system,” she told reporters.

“I just can’t wait to see her smile. I can’t wait to hear ‘Mom’, I know that’s the first thing she’s gonna say.”

Eastern Thailand is long accustomed to port visits by the U.S. Navy and has a relationship going back to the Vietnam War, when Pattaya was a sleepy beach town close to a naval base and an airfield used by U.S. bombers, with thousands of U.S. personnel based in the area.

Thailand became a U.S. treaty ally in 1954 before being designated a major non-NATO ally in 2003. The two countries’ militaries maintain strong ties and hold joint exercises every year.

The Lincoln, its broad flight deck packed with helicopters and warplanes, including the latest F-35 fighter jets, arrived in Laem Chabang early on Wednesday and the guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. docked in nearby Sri Racha.

Both vessels were streaked with rust and showed mottled paint along the waterlines. A third ship, the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, arrived in the port of Map Tha Phut.

‘Drinks, having fun, and letting loose’

The port visit has raised hopes of an economic boost for Pattaya, which also has a long-standing reputation as a sex tourism destination.

The city’s mayor, Poramase Ngampiches, met the commander of the Lincoln on Wednesday and said U.S. officials had placed restrictions on the crew’s activities during the stay, including on water sports and visiting certain entertainment zones after sunset, which he said could present a negative image.

Police will deploy additional patrols around Pattaya’s main beachfront and nightlife district, following raids ​over the weekend and the arrest of 40 to 50 people for suspected prostitution.

Although illegal in Thailand, the sex industry operates openly in tourism ​hubs, including in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya, despite occasional crackdowns.

On the eve of the Lincoln’s arrival, Pattaya street vendors near the city’s infamous “Walking Street” nightlife zone were excited by the prospect of a boost in sales.

“It’s been so quiet these days,” said clothes seller Kadsalin Ketpa, 43. “I hope with their arrival they would drive my sales up.”

Food seller Saroch, 45, said port visits by the U.S. military were good for business.

“They’re here for drinks, having fun, and letting loose,” Saroch said.

Matthew had wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and enlist in the Navy for years, according to a recent release.

“We explored a lot of possibilities and options,” Christine Sussman said in the announcement. “No matter what I threw at him, nothing really seemed to stick or really get him excited until he started talking about enlisting. It’s like the most enthusiastic we’ve ever seen him about anything.”

In June, Matthew’s family gathered at the Albany Military Entrance Processing Station as he raised his right hand and swore into the Navy.

Capt. Sussman, commanding officer of Commander, Navy Regional Maintenance Center, shed a tear as he stood at attention with his son before reciting the oath. The moment marked both a new beginning for Matthew as he left for boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes in Illinois and the end of his father’s Navy career.

“In July of 1991 I went off to the Merchant Marine Academy to my boot camp,” Capt. Sussman said. “I commissioned in June of 1995, and 31 years later, here I sit on my last day in uniform doing the oath of enlistment for my son, on his first day in uniform. It’s just a tremendous honor and I couldn’t be more proud.”

For Capt. Sussman, administering the oath was a chance to pass his Navy legacy on to his son.

“The Navy can’t get rid of the Sussmans and we’re excited about it,” he said.

Matthew will serve as a submarines information systems technician and said he is ready for the challenge and responsibility that come with his new role.

“I’m jealous of my son,” Capt. Sussman said. “I told him if I could take his spot, start it and do it all over again I would absolutely do it.”

By a vote of 370-48, the House passed the extension of current spending through Dec. 11 and sent it to President Donald Trump for signing into law. The Senate passed the measure on Aug. 8.

The temporary measure prevents the type of situation that occurred last year, when a government shutdown put paychecks for U.S. troops in doubt.

Troops request assistance at ‘unprecedented’ rate as shutdown persists

The measure was needed because Congress so far has failed to finish work on any of the 12 spending bills that fund government programs for the full fiscal year that runs from Oct. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2027. Those programs range from homeland security and federal law enforcement to energy, housing and defense.

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Congress has been consumed by particularly contentious fights between Republicans who control Congress and the Democratic minority in the House and Senate.

The result has been three partial government shutdowns, totaling an unprecedented 161 days, as the two parties fought over health insurance subsidies and checks on federal immigration officers’ enforcement powers.

This time, neither Republicans nor Democrats wanted a fourth shutdown hanging over them as they run for re-election, potentially enraging voters who already are angry about the high price of food and housing, the U.S. war against Iran and tariffs on foreign goods that have hit farmers particularly hard.

During debate of the temporary funding bill known as a “continuing resolution,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma underscored the political sensitivities.

“This will give Congress time to get past the November elections,” Cole said, referring to the effort to pass the bill.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the appropriations panel, argued that this bill was a move toward Congress reclaiming its constitutional power over spending. That, after the Trump administration since early 2025 took a series of unilateral actions, including severe cuts to federal agencies and even the elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“The power of the purse resides within the Congress. It is our exclusive responsibility,” DeLauro said, adding, “The first step in exercising that authority is passing this bill today.”

However, this stopgap bill fails to address any of the country’s major fiscal problems as its national debt crossed the $40 trillion threshold last month and Washington has failed to address voters’ top concern of affordability.

Furthermore, with the legislation delaying decision-making on spending priorities for another 15 weeks, Congress in December faces a potentially arduous task of writing and passing the 12 full-year spending bills.

Oil prices had already risen after that first exchange of direct attacks since July and after reports of two tankers being hit on Monday leaving the Strait, the global oil supply waterway that Iran has effectively closed to shipping. Brent crude futures, already up 2% on the day, jumped almost 2% more on the reports. [O/R]

Tehran remained defiant, warning that it would prevent oil being exported from the Gulf, despite a threat by President Donald Trump to hit Iran “hard” in response to the renewed Iranian strikes, and a warning from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Washington was about to impose new sanctions.

“Today at 12 p.m. ET (1600 GMT), U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran,” U.S. Central Command posted on X. “The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”

Iran’s state broadcaster said there had been reports of explosions on Iran’s Qeshm Island, on the northern side of the strait.

The state-linked news agency Nour News said there had been reports of explosions in the port city of Bandar Abbas and in Chabahar, a port on the southern coast. The state news agency IRNA also reported the sound of explosions in Jask and Sirik.

Trump posted on his social media channel that if Iran retaliated for the attack, “they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level”.

The Fars news agency cited an IRGC spokesperson as saying the U.S. “will regret its new attacks”.

Scale of resumption of Iran hostilities unclear

The U.S. Embassy in Qatar urged Americans currently in the Middle East to exercise “heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions”.

The six-month-old conflict had shifted into an economic standoff before the weekend strikes, in which U.S. forces attacked Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday and Iran responded by launching missiles at two U.S. air bases in Jordan.

Although he warned of a U.S. response to the Iranian strikes, Trump also told reporters on Monday that they did not signal a return to full-scale war, and a senior Iranian source told Reuters they were a “limited and contained confrontation”.

But pledges by both sides to respond to further attacks have highlighted how quickly a conflict that has increasingly been fought through sanctions, blockades and economic pressure could spill back into military action.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had said early on Tuesday at a regional summit in Kyrgyzstan that Tehran would reciprocate immediately if Washington honoured its commitments under a June Memorandum of Understanding that was intended to halt the conflict.

The MOU declared an end to fighting that has now killed thousands in Iran and Lebanon since U.S. and Israeli strikes began on February 28. But it also deferred many of the most difficult issues and paved the way for a broader 60-day negotiation period — which passed without further agreement.

Iranian officials have shown no public sign since then of bowing to pressure.

“If the enemy wants us not to export oil from the Persian Gulf, no one will be able to export oil,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference in Tehran that Washington was “addicted to making excessive demands and has mistaken negotiations for dictating terms”.

New US economic sanctions loom

“As long as they act in this manner, they will certainly get no result other than what they have achieved so far,” he added, warning that Tehran would “use all our capabilities, whether on the battlefield or through our diplomatic apparatus”.

Before the latest attacks, Bessent had said Washington was likely to announce bank sanctions against Iran this week and next, stepping up an attempt to “economically asphyxiate” Iran’s leadership after six months of conflict.

At a G20 finance leaders’ meeting in Asheville, ​North Carolina, he said the U.S. was also looking at targeting airline leasing companies and other entities that did business with the IRGC.

“We have zero tolerance. We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime,” he said.

Iran’s leaders have defied decades of U.S. sanctions, many of which have been aimed at curtailing Tehran’s oil revenues and acquisition of weapons components.

Bessent has also warned that countries doing business with Iran could face U.S. sanctions.

The heightened tensions have renewed fears of oil supply disruptions from the world’s key crude-producing region.

“The tit-for-tat missile exchanges between the U.S. and Iran bring validation to those who believe that even if not a ‘forever war’, this conflict will run and run,” said PVM analyst John Evans.

Highlighting such concerns, two supertankers carrying Saudi oil were struck by unknown projectiles within minutes of each other while transiting outbound through the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, according to data from shipping intelligence and tracking firms Marisks and Kpler.

The seventh-round pick and Pittsburgh native was included in the Steelers’ initial 53-man roster Sunday after he and fellow Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Alex Tecza made Naval Academy football history by appearing together for Pittsburgh in a preseason game against the Buffalo Bills.

Heidenreich and Tecza are the fourth pair of Naval Academy graduates to appear for the same team in the same NFL game, the second pair of former Navy football teammates to do so and the first pair of Marine Corps officers to accomplish the feat, according to the Naval Academy.

Three days later, Heidenreich had made the 53-man roster. Tecza was among the Steelers’ first wave of roster cuts Friday.

Heidenreich’s versatility was a factor in his bid for the lineup. Pittsburgh lists him as a running back/wide receiver, and at Navy he recorded 109 receptions for 1,994 yards and 16 touchdowns while also rushing for 1,157 yards and seven touchdowns.

In the Steelers’ preseason finale, he carried nine times for 35 yards, including a nine-yard touchdown, and returned two kickoffs for 47 yards. Pittsburgh’s roster analysis said his ability to contribute as a runner, pass-catcher and “core four” special teamer helped provide the versatility coach Mike McCarthy values.

After the touchdown, Heidenreich saluted, echoing the gesture he made after Pittsburgh selected him with the 230th pick in April. Buffalo took the preseason win, 28-27, but Heidenreich left Buffalo with something bigger: a spot on the team.

He graduated from the Naval Academy this year and was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer. The Naval Academy said the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes the military secretaries to transfer no more than five cadets or midshipmen from each service academy who obtain professional sports employment to the Selected Reserve as commissioned officers while pursuing their professional careers.

In 2021, a DoD Inspector General audit found that snoopers were able to access the protected health information, or PHI, of “well-known DOD personnel.” Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that VA staff — often out of simple curiosity — had improperly accessed records of then-vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz.

The Defense Health Agency has since tightened access to health records of well-known personnel, according to a follow-up DOD IG audit published Monday. But what DHA isn’t doing is investigating access by people who are not on a designated list of approved users.

The DHA “rarely investigated users who accessed the EHRs [electronic health records] of well‑known individuals to determine whether the access was improper,” said the IG report, which was heavily redacted.

DHA maintains a whitelist of authorized medical providers who can access health records, as well as a watchlist of users who are suspected of unauthorized access. Individuals on the watchlist are supposed to be referred to DHA’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Office, or to “the military medical treatment facility chain of command, for breach reporting, investigation, mitigation, containment, and sanctions if applicable,” the report noted.

DHA is also supposed to review weekly logs to determine whether access was justified.

Yet, DHA neither investigated users who were not on the approved list, nor those on the watchlist. Auditors examined the cases of 25 DoD personnel who were either senior officials or whose names had appeared in the media after a highly publicized event.

“Of the 2,600 users who accessed the PHI of those 25 well‑known individuals, 1,482 of the users were on the DHA’s Whitelist, and 15 were on the DHA’s Watchlist,” IG investigators found. “Of the 1,103 users (42 percent) who were not on the DHA’s Whitelist or Watchlist, the DHA did not investigate any of the users.”

In the case of one senior DOD official, 334 users accessed that person’s health records. Of that number, 94 were neither on the whitelist nor watchlist. There were no follow-up investigations.

One DHA policy — redacted in the report — isn’t meeting DoD guidelines, and it may also violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the audit said. In addition, it “may not support the Executive Order and National Counterintelligence Strategy that warned that access to sensitive information of well‑known individuals could threaten national security.”

“Without proper monitoring and inquiry, users who improperly access these EHRs would not be held accountable as required by DHA guidance.”

The IG recommended that DHA contact any user not on the approved whitelist who accessed the health records of well-known individuals. The agency should also maintain a complete audit trail of all correspondence between DHA and the user.

If the Defense Health Agency lacks the resources or authorities to complete these inquiries, it should coordinate with the appropriate DoD or other federal components for assistance, the report suggested.

The four Filipino archaeologists knelt shoulder to shoulder in a trench only slightly larger than a toddler’s sandbox, shaving away paper-thin layers of earth and filling buckets with soil beneath a blazing early afternoon sun on the Philippine island of Mindanao.

A few feet away, Mike Henshaw, who spent much of his 25-year U.S. Army career recovering the remains of fallen service members, was creating a grid by stretching string between wooden stakes. He then activated a ground-penetrating radar device, hoping it would help the young scientists uncover the remains of three American soldiers executed by the Japanese 84 years ago.

Henshaw had come to the predominantly Muslim city of Marawi in June alongside archaeologist Danny Keay and forensic anthropologist Karin Dominko to begin the search. But Henshaw had another goal as well: He wanted to prove that his small American nonprofit could train Filipino archaeologists to help search for service members still missing in action from past wars.

“The question is whether the accounting mission can be done faster and for less money—with the same high standards,” Henshaw said.

That question has taken on new urgency as the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency faces intense budget pressure and dramatic reductions in missions to find Americans left behind in jungles, mountains, and former battlefields around the world.

For veterans advocates and families of the missing in action, the concern goes beyond how many recovery missions the government can afford. They see the cutbacks as a test of whether the nation can continue to make good on its longstanding promise to account for those who never came home.

“We’re not only at a crossroads. We’re also at a critical point,” said James McCormick, a highly decorated combat veteran of the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars who now serves as executive director for government affairs of Vietnam Veterans of America.

Against that backdrop, the Marawi project may offer a glimpse of how nonprofits can help the U.S. military uphold its promise to leave no service member behind. By taking a larger role in organizing recovery missions, drawing on local archaeologists for much of the painstaking fieldwork, and enlisting retired MIA specialists, Henshaw argues, they could extend the accounting mission into places where U.S. resources are limited or official teams cannot go.

A shrinking field mission

Nearly 81,000 U.S. military personnel remain unaccounted for from conflicts since World War II, according to the DPAA. More than half were lost at sea or under circumstances that make finding their remains extremely unlikely. But the agency says about 38,000 are recoverable.

The magnitude of that unfinished work is now colliding with a shrinking ability to conduct searches.

After two years of significant increases under the Biden administration, DPAA’s budget fell from $185 million in fiscal 2025 to $167 million in 2026. And Pentagon leaders want to cut it again, to $160 million next year.

At the DPAA’s annual meeting with Vietnam-era MIA families in late June, Director Kelly McKeague pointed to a slide showing agency-led field missions worldwide falling from 105 in fiscal 2025 to a projected 48 in 2027. The situation, he said, “is ugly.”

The DPAA posted a record 231 identifications in 2025. But as The War Horse reported in May, the overwhelming majority came from previously unidentified remains exhumed from military cemeteries—not from new field recoveries. The record was set in the final year before the Pentagon’s cuts began, so unless funding for field missions is restored, the agency will likely have to rely even more on disinterments to keep its identification numbers high.

The decline in field missions is especially painful in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, where nearly 1,600 American service members remain missing from the Vietnam War. The DPAA’s missions in the region have plunged from 42 in 2025 to only 13 planned for next year.

Many MIA families—particularly those whose relatives went missing during the war in Vietnam—see time as the greatest enemy. Landscapes change. Witnesses die. And with each passing year, families fear that clues that once might have led search teams to missing Americans can disappear forever.

On his office desk, McCormick keeps a photograph of Navy Cmdr. Edward James Jacobs Jr., whose reconnaissance aircraft disappeared with two other crewmen off the coast of North Vietnam in August 1967.

Jacobs’ daughter, Jeanie Jacobs Huffman, has long advocated for families still seeking answers about missing relatives.

“Jeanie’s father is looking down at me every day,” McCormick said. “I can’t go to sleep at night without thinking about it.”

That is one reason McCormick has little patience for Pentagon officials repeatedly invoking the sanctity of the accounting mission while sending fewer recovery teams into the field.

“We don’t want to hear any more chatter about how much you love the fallen and how much you care,” McCormick said. “The greatest form of love is in showing it, not in talking about it. Whatever the price tag is, we should pay it. We need closure. We need accountability.”

The DPAA’s budget squeeze reflects a broader Pentagon paradox. Even as overall defense spending has jumped substantially during the second Trump administration, agencies across the Defense Department have been ordered to cut costs as Pentagon leaders redirect tens of billions of dollars toward missile defense, new weapon systems, artificial intelligence, and other priorities.

“There is absolutely nobody inside of the agency that is excited about the trend line [of DPAA funding],” Chris Phelps, who oversees the agency’s operations in the Indo-Pacific region, told families at the June briefing. “It is absolutely going in the wrong way.”

The War Horse sought comment on the DPAA’s budget from the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth but received no response before publication.

Congress could still reverse some or all of the cuts. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted in early June to add $40 million to the DPAA’s budget in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, a provision championed by Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Nebraska. But the House version passed in late July did not include the additional funding.

The House is back from summer recess, but the Senate will not return until Sept. 14, leaving the defense bill stalled and the DPAA’s budget outlook uncertain.

For Henshaw, the agency’s dwindling financial support strengthens the case for rethinking how recovery missions are conducted.

Henshaw, who founded the Virginia-based Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group (AMAG) in January 2025, argues that the traditional model of sending large American teams around the world has become too expensive to remain the primary approach.

He believes trained archaeologists in countries such as the Philippines could help build local recovery expertise while nonprofits and volunteers pursue more cases at lower cost.

Building a new recovery model

The Marawi excavation offered one possible way to extend the accounting mission as the DPAA cuts back on fieldwork. But it also showed how difficult it can be to build a local MIA recovery program from scratch.

When Henshaw arrived on Mindanao in January, he brought years of experience searching for missing Americans across Asia with predecessor agencies of the DPAA—and a list of potentially recoverable World War II cases.

For nearly a week, he drove around the Philippines’ second-largest island in a rented Toyota sedan, trying to connect with government officials and civic leaders. Scheduled meetings fell through or led nowhere. Residents warned him that he would be kidnapped or killed if he went to Marawi.

Back home in Colorado, John Bear, AMAG’s chief investigative researcher, sent email after email to potential contacts across Mindanao with little success.

Then came the reply that changed everything.

It was from Robert Alonto, a member of the Bangsamoro Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage who was about to become its chairman.

He wanted to talk.

Henshaw canceled his nonrefundable flight home and met over lunch with Alonto, his wife and son, and two Mindanao historians.

Henshaw explained how Bear had found an oral history interview with Ben Hagans, a former prisoner of war held by the Japanese who recalled watching his captors execute three Americans—Lt. Col. Robert Vesey, Capt. Albert Price, and 1st Sgt. John Chandler—at Camp Keithley, a U.S. Army post converted into a POW camp. Hagans, now 97, remembered seeing an obelisk near the execution site, offering Bear the best clue in decades to where the men might have been buried.

Hagans’ account also connected the search to Brig. Gen. Guy Fort, one of the senior U.S. Army officers who defended Mindanao. Fort had been spared during the July 1942 execution after Vesey offered to take his place. Four months later, the Japanese executed Fort after he refused to order the Moro guerrillas he had armed and trained to surrender. His remains have never been found.

Fort, the only American-born general executed by enemy forces during World War II, had spent four decades in the Philippines and knew Mindanao in a way few American officers did. Described as “a regular Daniel Boone,” he was an accomplished outdoorsman and mapmaker who learned local languages and immersed himself in Moro and other indigenous cultures.

Fort’s deep ties to Mindanao gave local officials reason to see the search as part of their own history, not simply an American recovery mission.

“Gen. Fort is a hero to the Moro people,” Alonto told Henshaw.

By the end of the lunch, Alonto’s son, Ruh, had agreed to serve as a bridge between the Americans and the communities in which they hoped to work.

A historical researcher from one of Mindanao’s most prominent Muslim families, Ruh Alonto knew the island’s politics, history, and people. He also understood the complicated legacy of American rule in the Philippines: U.S. troops had fought bloody campaigns against the Moros in the early 20th century, but the two sides became wartime allies after Japan invaded the Philippines in December 1941.

Official U.S. recovery teams cannot work in Marawi because of State Department security restrictions stemming from threats of terrorism and civil unrest.

Alonto said President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims and the U.S. war with Iran has deepened anti-American sentiment in the region, making the Americans’ presence in Marawi especially sensitive.

The city is also still rebuilding after the five-month battle in 2017 between Philippine security forces and Islamic State-linked militants that killed more than 1,100 people, displaced hundreds of thousands, and left much of the city center in ruins.

‘The CIA was already here’

Looking back, Alonto recalls thinking that Henshaw’s timetable seemed wildly unrealistic. Archaeological digs in the Philippines typically take at least a year to organize. Henshaw wanted to begin in four or five months.

“We’re all like, ‘Oh my God,’” Alonto recalled.

The team still had to recruit archaeologists, secure permits, consult local officials, obtain permission from landowners, and convince Philippine cultural authorities—accustomed to working with the DPAA—that Henshaw’s little-known nonprofit could be trusted.

A major boost came in April when Barbara Fox—whose stepfather, James Fort, was the general’s son—donated a collection of Fort’s diaries, photographs, correspondence, and artifacts to Iligan Institute of Technology, part of Mindanao State University. The collection is expected to become a permanent exhibit at the school.

Henshaw hand-delivered the materials. The donation helped build goodwill and reinforced the idea that the project was about preserving Mindanao’s history as well as recovering missing Americans.

But suspicions lingered.

The atmosphere became especially tense in April after the Philippine National Police and immigration officials arrested two young Tajik nationals for suspicious behavior in Marawi, Alonto said.

One Marawi resident lamented on Facebook that authorities were deporting Muslims while “the CIA was already here”—a reference to Henshaw and the American forensic anthropologist who had been discussing plans to return with equipment capable of detecting objects beneath the ground.

Still, the project moved forward.

Another crucial piece fell into place after Alonto approached Leee Anthony Neri, dean of the University of the Philippines’ School of Archaeology.

Neri, who grew up in northern Mindanao, has long pushed to expand archaeological work on the island and train more archaeologists from the region. Mindanao students seeking graduate training in archaeology generally have to move to Manila, he said, forcing many to leave jobs or somehow finance years of study hundreds of miles from home.

For Neri, the AMAG project aligned closely with what he was already trying to build: a center to train local archaeologists and study the archaeology and heritage of Mindanao. So Neri assembled a team of six other archaeologists, most of whom had previously excavated with him at Kota Kalawi, a historic fort where they conducted the first archaeological excavation in Lanao del Sur province in 2024.

“It’s such an honor to be part of this team,” said Ruben Claro “Kim” Reyes IV, who grew up in Manila. “We’re only starting to write the books about these places.”

Rona Catherine Repancol, also raised in Manila, already knew Marawi from her work as a historian studying fortifications around the city. Now pursuing a doctorate in archaeology, she said the Marawi excavation deepened her appreciation for Mindanao’s Muslim culture and history.

When she’s in Marawi, Repancol always wears long sleeves and pants out of respect for local customs and often covers her hair at special events.

Working there “connects me to the larger Philippine communities, not only the Christianized areas where I usually go,” she said. “It’s a beautiful experience.”

The dig begins, then stops

By late May, all the permits had come through. The archaeologists began arriving. The equipment was in place.

Then, as workers began clearing the site at Lanao People’s Park, a local family showed up claiming ownership of the land. The archaeological team, which had begun digging its first trench, was accused of trespassing.

Family members also suspected the Americans might be treasure hunters.

The suspicion had deep roots. The Philippines has long been gripped by stories of “Yamashita’s gold,” a vast cache supposedly hidden by retreating Japanese troops during World War II. The legend has fueled decades of often-destructive searches for buried treasure.

With the project suddenly in danger of unraveling, Ruh Alonto stepped in.

“I had to deescalate the entire situation,” he said.

Alonto explained what the team was doing and assured the family’s elders that the Americans were not searching for gold or trying to take their land.

A few days later, the elders gave the project their blessing.

Once the digging began in earnest, Henshaw said, he found himself surrounded by experienced archaeologists. What they had never done was apply those skills to the search for specific missing service members.

Henshaw and Keay showed them how to combine historical records and witness accounts with ground-penetrating radar data, map a site from a fixed survey point, and systematically search for evidence that might lead to human remains.

The knowledge flowed in both directions.

Trained to focus almost exclusively on recovering missing service members, Henshaw had long viewed anything unrelated to the case at hand as “peripheral.” Working alongside the Filipino archaeologists gave him a new appreciation for cultural archaeology, where every layer of soil, pottery fragment, and even the discoloration left by a long-decayed wooden post can help tell the story of a place.

“I learned why it’s so important for them to look at everything and not discard anything, even if it’s not related to the case we’re interested in,” he said. “It’s related to their history.”

Danny Keay understands why that history matters. He has spent decades searching for missing service members, beginning as a teenager in Germany tracking down World War II aircraft crash sites simply because he loved airplanes.

After a 22-year U.S. Army career that included counterintelligence work, he earned a master’s degree in conflict archaeology and did postgraduate training in analyzing human skeletal remains. Over the years, he has participated in 21 recovery operations.

The volunteer work gradually shifted his focus from the aircraft and artifacts to the families still waiting for answers. He recalled one American mother whose son went missing during World War II. For five or six years, she left her front door unlocked, believing he might someday walk through it.

Stories like that changed how Keay thought about the accounting mission.

“I honestly don’t care who takes the credit,” he said. “As long as the family gets their loved one back.”

‘The archaeology sounds the same’

When Owen O’Leary heard details of the Marawi excavation—the grids, the meticulous removal of soil, the buckets of dirt carried away by local laborers—the DPAA’s field sciences manager immediately recognized the process.

“The archaeology sounds the same,” O’Leary said.

The biggest difference was scale.

O’Leary, an archaeologist who spent 13 years supervising DPAA excavations and site surveys, said an archaeological survey may require eight to 10 people, while a large recovery operation can deploy 20 to 25.

Depending on the mission, those teams can include archaeologists, forensic anthropologists, military officers, medics, explosive ordnance technicians, forensic photographers, linguists, and life-support specialists.

Remote operations may require helicopters, boats, and occasionally even porters. Medical evacuation plans must be approved before recovery teams deploy. In some places, the DPAA teams sleep in tents at the site rather than lose hours each day traveling from distant hotels.

For all the sophisticated technology available to recovery teams, O’Leary said, there is still no substitute for excavations. Remote-sensing equipment can identify promising areas, but only careful excavation can establish what is actually beneath the ground.

“We do not go for easy,” O’Leary said. “We go for detailed, proper methods to ensure that we do not miss remains in the field.”

That level of staffing and logistical support is expensive.

At the June meeting, McKeague and Phelps assured the Vietnam-era MIA families that their cases would remain a priority. According to the DPAA, those cases still account for most of the Indo-Pacific directorate’s field-operations budget—69% in the current fiscal year and a projected 65% next year.

The DPAA budgeted $16 million for 28 investigative and recovery missions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia this year—an average of $573,000 per mission. For fiscal 2027, the agency projects spending $9.1 million for 13 missions, or an average of $702,000 per mission.

Henshaw said the cost of the initial Marawi excavation was about $45,000.

Doing more with less

The independent Marawi project reflects some of the concepts of the DPAA’s partnership program, in which the agency has leveraged the skills and resources of universities, nonprofits, foreign governments, and veterans organizations.

Rocky Gillette helped build much of that network, which he calls a “force multiplier.” As director of the agency’s Partnerships and Innovation Directorate, he works with about 130 partners worldwide, with another 40 in development.

But the Pentagon’s budget cuts are also reducing the very partnership missions the agency has relied on to expand its reach.

Gillette said his directorate had expected about $23 million for fiscal year 2027 under the Pentagon’s long-range budget plan. Instead, it’s set to receive about $12 million—a 48% reduction. His directorate had hoped to support about 55 partner-led missions next year, but now expects to support roughly 16.

“I think that the entire agency is confronted with this problem—how to do more with less,” Gillette said.

Henshaw believes his model could help. He wants qualified nonprofits to focus on specific regions, maintaining local relationships, equipment, and knowledge between DPAA deployments.

“DPAA has a global mission and necessarily rotates personnel and resources across many countries,” he said. “A regional nonprofit partner can continue investigations, follow new leads, monitor sites, build relationships, and prepare cases so that when DPAA is ready to conduct a recovery, much of the groundwork has already been completed.”

Some of the DPAA’s nonprofit partners have developed deep expertise in particular countries or regions, but usually through a succession of individual missions rather than the long-term assignments that Henshaw envisions.

Oregon-based Project Recover, which operates in 25 countries, has returned repeatedly to Palau, an island nation just east of the Philippines, according to CEO Derek Abbey, a retired Marine officer.

Abbey said its DPAA work in Palau has been funded mission by mission through separate contracts. But multiyear agreements might be a smarter approach because they would “give us greater freedom of movement, the ability to work on multiple missions at a time, and over time will result in cost savings,” he said.

The advantage is not only financial, Abbey said. Repeated visits help recovery teams build trust with local residents. Once they understand that the teams are searching for missing people rather than lost treasure, he said, the work takes on a different meaning for them.

“It very much becomes their mission as well,” Abbey said.

What comes next?

In mid-June, the Marawi excavation ended without finding the remains of the three soldiers executed at Camp Keithley.

The clue that had made the case seem so promising—Ben Hagans’ vivid memory of the execution near an obelisk—also revealed how difficult the search would be. When Ruh Alonto located the monument in late March, hidden by foliage next to a police station, he found that much of the surrounding area had been built over. He had hoped the obelisk would sit within a larger stretch of undisturbed ground. Instead, only about 20% of the area around it could be excavated.

The archaeologists discovered another complication once they began digging. Nearly two meters of fill, much of it deposited during a hydroelectric project in the 1970s, covered the wartime surface.

But the dig did uncover evidence that people had occupied the site long before World War II.

The archaeologists found earthenware shards, flakes of chert, and volcanic glass whose fracture patterns suggested some had been fashioned into stone tools. The artifacts have not yet been scientifically dated, but similar discoveries at the Kota Kalawi excavation raised the possibility that the ground being searched for Americans executed in 1942 had been occupied by people thousands of years earlier.

Before leaving Mindanao, Henshaw donated his $30,000 ground-penetrating radar system to the cultural commission and trained the Filipino archaeologists how to use it in future searches.

The excavation also drew interest beyond the dig site. In late June, about 150 Mindanao residents attended a public exhibition at the People’s Park library about the excavation and the history of Camp Keithley.

Outside, national police officers carrying rifles stood guard. Inside, Muslim and Christian residents mingled among the displays.

The project may also have opened a path toward cooperation between Henshaw and an agency he has fiercely criticized for years.

A month after the excavation, Henshaw and Bear met virtually for more than an hour with senior DPAA officials—including Gillette, Phelps, and the agency’s chief counsel—to discuss whether AMAG and the Pentagon agency could work together.

The two sides did not reach an agreement. But in early August, AMAG submitted a proposal to conduct five MIA investigations and two archaeological excavations annually over a three-year period on Mindanao.

Henshaw estimates the program would cost $180,000 a year and rely heavily on volunteers, Filipino archaeologists, and relationships already established across the island.

The idea is to turn what happened in Marawi into a continuing presence rather than a series of stand-alone expeditions.

Keeping a qualified nonprofit in the same geographic area eliminates the repetition of assembling teams, moving equipment, and establishing local relationships, Henshaw said.

Local archaeologists, historians, and volunteers could also develop cases between excavations by interviewing witnesses, locating forgotten cemeteries, studying wartime aerial imagery, and following new leads, he said.

The potential caseload is substantial. The DPAA says there are 180 unresolved MIA cases across Mindanao.

If American remains are found, Henshaw said, they would be handled under formal chain-of-custody procedures, transferred to the National Museum of the Philippines, and ultimately turned over to the DPAA.

Henshaw said he never intended to prove his concept through a single excavation. The real test, he said, would come from the multiyear pilot, allowing his nonprofit to maintain a continuous regional presence, pursue multiple MIA cases, and then measure the results against the cost and pace of conventional recovery missions.

He and Bear already know where they want to look next.

After studying World War II maps, eyewitness accounts, and wartime aerial imagery analyzed by AMAG volunteer Ed Bauer, Bear believes he has identified the rifle range where Japanese troops executed and buried Brig. Gen. Guy Fort.

Unlike Camp Keithley, the suspected burial site lies away from the heavily altered urban landscape that complicated the first excavation.

And when Henshaw’s team returns to Marawi, a much larger team of archaeologists and partners with the right equipment will be there, ready to start digging again.

This article from The War Horse was edited by Paul Szoldra, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Answering a displaced service member’s question about retrieving personal goods from the base they previously called home, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said the Navy would not be using Naval Support Activity Bahrain for the foreseeable future.

“We’re not getting back in there anytime soon,” Caudle said. “I just want to be completely honest with that.”

On Feb. 28, Iran struck NSA Bahrain with missiles and one-way attack drones after the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched strikes on the Islamic Republic.

The Pentagon initially reported zero fatalities and said the strikes did not significantly impact military operations.

Several months later, however, the true impacts of the strike are coming into focus.

Retired Navy Capt. John Cordle recently described the loss of NSA Bahrain as having “profound tactical and strategic repercussions.”

“The more we learn about the attacks on the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Manama, Bahrain, during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the clearer it becomes why the news of its near destruction was not initially reported or acknowledged,” Cordle said.

Moving supply hubs that were once hundreds of miles away to thousands of miles away will prove to be a major limitation to future maritime operations, he added.

A sailor who was deployed aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship during the Iran war told Military Times that they were unable to get food resupplies after NSA Bahrain was damaged.

After the damage, the Navy shifted to relying on a logistics hub at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that sits more than 2,000 miles away from the service’s carrier strike groups in the Middle East.

The distance required the sailors onboard the LCS to place food orders 30 days in advance, which proved challenging due to the unpredictable schedule of frenzied military operations.

At an Aug. 11 town hall in San Diego, military families told acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao that they were concerned about food shortages and declining morale aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln after the ship had not made an official port call in over seven months.

Damage to the Fifth Fleet headquarters, barracks, warehouses and communication towers at NSA Bahrain may lead to construction costs worth roughly $400 million, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

Meanwhile, thousands of troops and their families are reportedly still in limbo, with many living in temporary lodging while waiting to be reunited with their belongings — and even pets — after the base’s destruction.

Vice Adm. Curt Renshaw, who leads the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, admitted during a recent virtual town hall with Navy families that the service is “making it up as we go because nothing is conceived to go on this length of time.”

“These are complex problems, and the solutions have not been exactly obvious,” Renshaw said.

While the service did not detail the aircraft’s combat radius, the Aug. 31 Request for Information did note that the service wants the CCA to carry up to 5 tons of weapons and cost no more than $30 million per unit.

The service has set a response deadline of Sept. 18.

Prospective contractors are asked to “provide the maximum combat radius including weapons loadout, 30 minutes on-station and reserve fuel for safe recovery that the proposed solution can perform.”

While potential CCA designs can have both internal and external weapons, according to the RFI, the aircraft must be capable of carrying “four weapons up to 2,500 pounds each externally throughout the target flight envelope and carrier certification flights.”

The Navy is seeking two prototypes capable of achieving shore-based, aircraft carrier qualifications within the next three years.

The prototypes are intended to demonstrate “extended range and payload capacity, while minimizing deck footprint and integrating with established CVN [nuclear-powered carrier] infrastructure,” the RFI said.

The CCA project aims to deliver an autonomous combat drone that can team up with manned carrier aircraft and perform missions in contested skies that are becoming increasingly risky for human pilots.

The Navy also wants carrier-based combat drones to soften the blow of traditional weapons losses, alleviating the “high cost and extended timelines required to replace manned platforms and naval surface combatants,” which “limit the Joint Force’s capacity to absorb operational losses,” the RFI states.

The service’s Aug. 31 request describes an ideal unmanned aircraft capable of executing single- and multi-aircraft strike missions. Conceptual images from major defense firms such as Anduril and General Atomics suggest designs that resemble smaller versions of manned stealth fighters.

Regardless of final design, the Navy wants a CCA that will not require drastic changes to carriers and embarked air wings. For example, the CCA should operate easily from Ford- and Nimitz-class carriers, the RFI states, including catapult takeoffs and arrested landings up to Sea State 5 (waves up to 13 feet high).

Flight operations are to be conducted using existing carrier air wing personnel, the Navy request states, with CCA drones controlled by the MD-5 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System that serves the MQ-25 Stingray.

“Physical dimensions, height, width, and weight thresholds must meet carrier deck, elevator and hangar bay requirements,” the request notes. There should also be a minimum of specialized support and deck-handling equipment for the drones. The drone spot factor — how much deck and hangar space it takes up — “must not exceed existing fourth generation fighter aircraft.”

The Navy does eventually want new methods for servicing and handling its CCA platforms. Contractors are asked to suggest alternatives for “a deck handling system that can operate all carrier-based unmanned air vehicles through launch, recovery and deck operations during EMCON [emergency] conditions without increasing support equipment solutions or requiring any additional flight deck personnel,” according to the RFI.

The CCA’s price tag, meanwhile, is growing.

In 2024, Navy officials noted that, because the drone is meant to be expendable, the service would like to keep the cost down to around $15 million apiece.

The new RFI, however, asks companies to provide an interim manufacturing and supply chain plan for “reaching the Navy’s affordability goals of $30 million per unit.”

The goal, as military officials and industry executives often describe it, is to give commanders the information they need to make consequential decisions as quickly as possible.

But no matter how fast or accurate the analysis is, there’s still a gap between identifying what needs to happen and acting on it. Much of that AI processing happens on computers and servers miles from the battlefield, leaving troops to receive the information through radios, tablets or other devices.

That means the next step in military AI may be putting the technology directly on the bodies of those in the field. While some companies are exploring wearable technology like helmets equipped with heads-up displays, Smack Technologies thinks the answer may be much simpler: Instead of putting AI in a helmet, put it on an operator’s wrist.

The California-based defense tech startup recently raised $61 million in Series B funding to develop Alpha, a wrist-worn device designed to connect operators in the field to real-time data collected and processed through Smack’s Omega AI software.

Andy Markoff, Smack’s co-founder and chief executive, told Military Times that his company started with the software because it could train its AI around day-to-day operations.

“Alpha tackles a much harder problem because you have to make the model work in the field with hardware and little to no connectivity, but we’ve always known this is what has to happen to enable decision dominance,” he said.

During an interview, Markoff walked Military Times through the concept of Alpha, from how operators would wear the device to how it’s used.

As a former Marine Raider, Markoff said he and his team of former military personnel believe the wrist is a more convenient place to access intelligence in the field.

“The form factor we’re building replaces what I literally used to wear on my forearm, only here I’m exchanging a whiteboard and grease pencil for a flexible computer screen that has our models’ capabilities on it,” he said.

He likened the concept to a QB sleeve, which allows a quarterback to see plays at a glance.

“Our sensors that are out collecting information about enemy forces and their location are sending that information to a screen on my forearm along with actionable decision options informed by campaign equities and adjacent units,” he said.

Markoff said he recognizes that a heads-up display could be useful for some missions, but he also sees drawbacks, particularly in hot or humid environments.

“If you’ve ever walked in the jungle at night, you know you’d actually rather risk having an eyeball poked out by a tree than wear shooting glasses that fog up and prevent you from seeing anything,” he said.

However, Markoff said that the hardware is the easy part of building an AI-enabled wearable. The more difficult problem is figuring out what information an operator needs in the field.

He explained the fundamental idea behind Alpha is to decentralize command and control in environments where operators cannot communicate directly with commanders.

“To do this, we’re essentially encoding commander’s intent: here’s our goal, here’s what makes the most sense for the theater and the theater’s goals, and here’s context around how everyone at the front lines should be going after that goal, including constraints and contracts with adjacent units,” he said.

He added that the goal isn’t to have AI make decisions, but to give the operator enough information to make better ones, potentially increasing effectiveness while reducing wasted time and resources.

Alpha has been in development for only about four months, but Markoff projects that Smack will have a working prototype within the next year and could secure contracts for the device within two years.

On Aug. 20, 2025, an 11-hour blaze broke out aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS New Orleans off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, leading to approximately $12 million in damage. Sailors successfully extinguished the blaze, leaving two service members with minor injuries.

“As of the signing of this report, the NCIS investigation is ongoing, and the precise ignition source of the fire is unknown,” the report said. “As other causes (e.g., electrical, weather) have been ruled out, NCIS’ initial findings attributed the fire to human interaction, either intentional or due to negligence.”

The fire took an abnormal amount of time to suppress because 100 boxes of toilet paper blocked sprinkler heads inside a special clothing storeroom that would have otherwise helped douse the flames, the investigation found.

The toilet paper acted as kindling for the fire, making it grow larger and increase in duration.

Hazardous materials, such as aerosol cans, that were not supposed to be in the storeroom were also found present after the fire.

The ship’s crew and investigators who responded to the fire also failed to locate the fire promptly, even though an alarm pointed them toward the special clothing storeroom, the report said.

Investigators were finally able to locate the fire in the storeroom, but they were unable to break in as they didn’t have the proper forcible entry equipment.

The report said that if they had these resources at their disposal, as well as proper training, there was a greater likelihood they could’ve addressed the fire at an earlier time.

The investigators were also forced to flee the area outside the storeroom after a firefighting system designed to protect a flammable liquids storeroom nearby deployed too early.

This, coupled with the fact that fire investigators didn’t properly set fire and smoke boundaries, made it so that smoke spread through the ship, and water flooded the forward vacuum, collecting, holding and transfer tank. Setting boundaries can mean closing openings to make sure the fire doesn’t grow.

In addition, the command investigation said that leadership aboard the New Orleans didn’t understand how to properly use the ship’s firefighting system, which included sprinklers and a ventilation system.

Crews should have focused their efforts on the ventilation system, but instead they used too much water when trying to suppress the fire, creating steam, reducing visibility, flooding spaces and making it harder to travel to the origin of the fire.

After the fire, the USS New Orleans returned to its homeport for planned maintenance in November 2025 and rejoined the service in January 2026.

The ship went on to help enforce the U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after the start of the Iran war.

While the service still looks to figure out what caused the fire, it said it has learned from its mistakes.

“The insights gained from this incident have been integrated into damage control training and inspection requirements across the Navy, helping ensure that Sailors and Marines throughout the force are better prepared to respond when casualties occur in the future,” a Navy spokesperson told Military Times in an emailed statement.