Two crew members ejected, landing miles apart from one another. While the U.S. was able to locate and rescue the pilot that same day, the weapon systems officer aboard remained unaccounted for.

A mad dash to save him ensued.

The officer, call sign Dude 44 Bravo, marched several kilometers, significantly injured and bleeding, evading the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headhunting him. The airman found refuge in a mountain crevice, hoping American troops would make it to him before Iran’s military did.

His life hung in the balance.

Meanwhile, individuals around the world were placing bets online, guessing which day the officer would be rescued. They did so on the prediction market Polymarket, hoping to cash out with the correct pick.

The pushback was swift.

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a Marine Corps veteran, called the bet disgusting on X, and less than three hours later, Polymarket announced it had taken down the wager because it didn’t meet the platform’s integrity standards.

The weapon systems officer was rescued overnight from April 4-5 in a mission that included 155 aircraft supported by hundreds of special operations personnel. Polymarket bettors didn’t cash out.

“It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards,” read a Polymarket response to Moulton’s X post.

Markets are created by Polymarket’s own markets team with input from users and the community, according to the platform’s website.

Before and since the Iran war began, though, Polymarket has created war-related markets that users can bet on, raising concerns over the illegality and ethics of those specific bets. Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment.

Experts and lawmakers told Military Times that while the latter two concerns were front of mind, along with insider trading, the bets could also jeopardize national security.

Privileged information

Several days after the bet regarding the F-15E crew member was taken offline, U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., took to social media to express his dismay.

“Betting on the lives of our service members, on war, on assassination, and death is morally indefensible,” Levin said in a Facebook post.

During an interview with Military Times, Levin said he also had a problem with what many Polymarket bets insinuated: Anonymous traders might be using insider knowledge of massive military and war operations to turn a large profit.

On the first day of Operation Epic Fury, for instance, an anonymous Polymarket account under the username “Magamyman” made roughly $550,000 off of trades about the U.S. strikes against Iran and the removal of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by Israeli air strikes during the opening salvo of the Iran war.

“As a member of Congress, I have, I think, a fair amount of information that the public doesn’t,” Levin said. “I would have never in a million years thought that we’d be engaging in that sort of kinetic effort right then and there.”

Levin’s thinking was based off the briefings he’d received and President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, he said. Based on that, he doesn’t believe that bets like this were the result of luck.

Insider trading wasn’t his only concern, though.

“Not only did they profit illegally, but I think they also may have exposed national security information publicly,” Levin said.

Manipulating state interest

Prediction markets don’t represent the likelihood something will happen, they represent the likelihood people think something will happen, according to Matthew Motta, an associate professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health who’s written about sports betting and prediction markets.

But if people believe the former statement, and not the latter, foreign adversaries or bad actors can take advantage of that dichotomy to thwart U.S. interests and strengthen their own, Motta told Military Times.

“Folks in the military may see movement on a prediction market as intelligence,” Motta said. “And if they do, then that information becomes rife for manipulation, because what can happen is that untraceable actors, perhaps actors with nefarious interests, can place money on an outcome that would be convenient for them.”

Unlike in sports gambling, where people might bet against a house in which a person or an algorithm sets the odds, people are betting directly against one another, which means they can directly alter the odds and the bet.

There was also the human element of greed.

Hypothetically, an intelligence official or military official could log onto Polymarket and place an anonymous bet on when a service member might be rescued or when a military operation might commence. They could then potentially make sure the military action they oversaw or aspects of a particular combat operation aligned with that bet to ensure they got a hefty payout without anyone knowing.

“That’s part of the nature of the problem is that a lot of this is being done through decentralized finance,” Levin said. “In this instance, it’s making it more difficult to determine exactly who is placing these bets and who’s making the money.”

Polymarket allows users to bet or trade shares anonymously by connecting their cryptocurrency wallets. While the amount bet or made is public, the identity of those receiving a financial windfall is not.

If adversaries started to count on this type of discord in which military or intelligence officials were using classified or non-public information to enrich their finances, it could reduce the lethality of U.S. war operations.

“If folks start to believe that these people are somebody working at the Pentagon or something, then you could imagine this might heighten the alert and reduce the element of surprise,” said Robert Ralston, a professor at the University of Birmingham’s Department of Political Science and International Studies who studies international security and has written about prediction markets.

Ralston also worried that concerns over Defense Department employees abusing privileged information for monetary gain could sew distrust among an American public that already might be skeptical of trusting government institutions.

If this inappropriate wielding of power was to be expected by Americans or adversaries, then adversaries might begin weaponizing technology to leverage those perceived weaknesses.

“As AI tools get better, it’s not a farfetched thing for a foreign government to create, essentially, a bot or a tool that constantly monitors ... every Polymarket event contract related to Iran and try to find anomalous trades,” said Matthew Wein, a former policy advisor to the Department of Homeland Security.

The national security threat could also be scaled up, depending on the stakes of the wager, said Evan Cooper, a research analyst at Washington think tank Stimson Center.

Advisors or military officials with a direct line to the president could tip the scales in favor of going to war altogether, based off bets they’d made.

There were also other, stranger ways that market manipulation via Polymarket could potentially occur.

On November 15, 2025, a handful of Polymarket users placed bets on whether Russia would storm Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine by the evening, despite there being no heavy indication that it would happen.

The markup on profit for some was reportedly 33,000%.

Several hours later, the bettors won.

But not because Russia had actually taken the city.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think-tank which Polymarket allegedly sometimes utilizes for military cartography and information about the war in Ukraine, had inexplicably changed the map shortly before the bet ended to show that Russia made inroads into the city even though there was no information to support the edit.

Polymarket paid the bettors.

But the next day, the map’s edit was fixed, ISW acknowledged the error, and it appeared that the staffer responsible for it was fired.

Dubious bets

There have been several high-profile, well-timed bets on aspects of the Iran war that have yielded massive financial gains for users whose identities are unknown.

Fifty newly created accounts on Polymarket placed large bets on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire in the hours leading up to the official April 7 ceasefire that Trump announced on Truth Social.

They were the only bets those accounts had ever placed, and some accounts reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in winnings as a result of their wagers.

Trump uploaded a social media post on Truth Social earlier in the day, claiming “a whole civilization will die tonight.”

A ceasefire was not widely expected at that juncture.

Another anonymous Polymarket user walked away with $400,000 after placing a bet in January that former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would be ousted as the country’s leader hours before the U.S. captured him and transported him to the U.S.

Six Polymarket accounts made a total of $1.2 million betting that the U.S. would strike Iran, and many of the wallets placed the bet hours before the first strike. The wallets were funded only a day before the bets were wagered, according to an X post from visual analytics platform Bubblemaps.

“It is the wild west, which is why new rules need to be written,” Levin said.

If people were capitalizing on non-public information they’d gleaned through official duties to make money, it should be illegal, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, he said.

There were prior concerns over Polymarket’s legality before the Iran war.

The U.S. Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission launched investigations into the prediction market during former President Joe Biden’s administration. The platform was banned in the U.S. from 2022 to early 2025 after the CFTC settled charges against the company for not complying with regulations.

But those federal investigations were closed with no charges filed once Trump took office, and the prediction market was allowed to operate in the U.S.

There are also questions regarding conflicts of interest.

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was appointed as an adviser to Polymarket in August 2025, and the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, where Trump Jr. is a partner, is also an investor in the company.

The current law, under the Commodity Exchange Act, makes it so that the CFTC possesses the authority to decide whether a betting contract should be taken down or violates current law that prohibits wagers on terrorism, assassinations or war.

Specifically, CFTC Regulation 40.11 cites that a CFTC registered entity cannot list for trading a contract that involves “terrorism, assassination, war” and or that is “contrary to the public interest.”

But there are several loopholes that allow individuals to bet on contracts that appear to deal with war and death and appear to violate this regulation, Levin said.

First, prediction markets can self-certify themselves and say they’re complying with the law, Levin said.

Polymarket maintains a Designated Contract Market license that the CFTC oversees, which allows the prediction market to self-certify and list new markets unless the CFTC takes issue.

Michael Selig, the chair of the CFTC, has defended the legality of prediction markets, announcing his support on social media and suing several states attempting to regulate prediction markets, claiming that it is the sole right of the CFTC to regulate them, and not the states.

During a hearing before the House Agriculture Committee — which oversees the CFTC — Selig said that his agency would bring anyone to justice engaging in insider trading.

Second, Levin said that Polymarket contends certain betting contracts that appear to hover around topics such as the death of leaders are actually regime change markets. This would allow the platform to circumvent CFTC regulations regarding assassination.

And third, Polymarket operates offshore, making it difficult for the CFTC to reach them, Levin said.

Ultimately, it’s up to the CFTC whether the contracts are in favor of public interest currently, but Levin disagrees that the power should rest solely with that government entity.

In response, Levin and U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, D-Calif., announced on March 10 the DEATH BETS Act, a bill that would make it illegal for a CFTC registered business to allow bets or contracts related to terrorism, assassinations, war or death.

“War is not a commodity, human life should never be traded on,” Levin said.

“Following the successful completion of our critical design review, construction on our first ASV is underway, and the ship is on track to be in the water and tested by the end of this year,” according to an Anduril statement to Military Times.

Anduril has been conducting daily at-sea testing to give insights into moving the vessel from production to operation, as it collects open-water operation data that will transfer to the first production hull when it delivers, per the statement.

Alongside HD Hyundai, Anduril is joining forces with Edison Chouest Offshore, a maritime transportation company, to produce the ASVs at their U.S. shipyards.

Speaking with reporters at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition on Monday, Anduril’s General Manager and Vice President of Surface Dominance Cory Emmons did not give a specific number of the ship’s production rate.

The vessel being built right now is set to be in the water this October, Emmons said, and its testing and sailing takes place from there. Anduril will be taking ownership of the vessel for testing off the U.S. coast by the end of 2026.

Emmons declined to comment on the vessel’s price tag.

“Since 9/11, we’ve lost over 21 times more veteran lives to suicide than on the battlefield,” he said. “Today, we’re bringing them new hope.”

Trump, in a declaration suffused with urgency, signed an executive order directing the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate the review of certain psychedelic therapies to treat mental illnesses.

Specifically, the order commits at least $50 million in federal funds to boost research on ibogaine, a powerful hallucinogen derived from the African shrub iboga.

Ibogaine is classified as a Schedule 1 substance in the United States — the same category as heroin — which means the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration considers it to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Yet it has drawn mounting scientific attention in recent years for its potential to ameliorate conditions ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to depression.

Much about the treatment remains opaque, but researchers argue the magnitude of the benefits observed in small, controlled trials merits further investigation. A 2024 Stanford University study of 30 special operations veterans with traumatic brain injury and repeated blast exposure found significant improvement in functioning, as well as an easing of PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms after a single ibogaine session. No serious adverse side effects were reported, and no cardiac complications of the kind occasionally associated with the drug were observed. The authors cautioned, however, that larger studies were needed to better understand its safety and efficiency.

“If these turn out to be as good as people are saying, it’s going to have a tremendous impact on this country, and other countries, too,” Trump emphasized. “It’s for a lot of people, but it’s for our military in particular. The suicide epidemic among veterans is a national tragedy.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appearing alongside Trump on Saturday, said, “We owe it to our war fighters and veterans to turn over every stone” to alleviate the mental health challenges stemming from their deployments. He acknowledged that the Schedule 1 restriction has caused veterans to seek treatment abroad, where ibogaine is legal.

“It’s disturbing to me and to the president that hundreds, in fact thousands, of veterans are having to travel to Mexico, or other countries, to experiment with interventions that hold great promise,” Kennedy added.

Trump’s directive would not immediately change the categorization of any substance. Instead, it aims to ease the regulatory constraints that have long stymied research, including for therapies already well advanced along the FDA’s approval process.

The Trump administration will also create a pathway for ibogaine to be “administered to desperately ill patients under the ‘Right to Try’ law.” This would permit patients with life-threatening conditions — who have exhausted all approved care — to access experimental medicine not yet fully supported by the FDA.

“I’ve always believed in ensuring that the American patients have access to breakthrough treatments and therapies with love for our veterans, and I have a real love for our veterans,” the president concluded.

A veteran’s search for healing led to an ibogaine trip and an epiphany

Marcus Capone, a Navy SEAL veteran with multiple combat deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, told Military Times that he found relief in the unconventional treatment. He credits the intervention, without hesitation, for saving his life.

“Every time you come home from a war zone, you feel like you lose a little bit of yourself,” he said, recalling cycles of emotional volatility which encompassed anger and sadness. Over the years, he tried both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical treatments, none of which proved to have long-lasting benefits.

As a last resort, his wife, Amber Capone, arranged for him to attend a medically supervised retreat in Mexico involving ibogaine. The treatment itself extends between six to 24 hours. Such sessions, he said, are psychologically demanding and physically taxing. At times, they can involve dark imagery and periods of intense emotional processing. But he insists that, for him at least, the gains were worth it.

“The psychedelic shows you not what you want to see, but what you need to see,” he explained. “So when you’re dealing with a traumatic experience, and you go revisit that, you deal with it. You get past the grief, the shame, and move on with your life. They actually get to the root cause of issues.”

The Capones have since established a foundation, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, or VETS, focused on expanding safe access to psychedelic-assisted therapy for those who have exited the military.

“There is hope,” Amber Capone told Military Times. “It’s not a one-size fits all, it’s not for everyone even. But there is hope, and you can actually live rather than simply survive.”

The move has stakeholders urging not to lean too hard on algorithms to distinguish, for instance, a scientist-spy sharing secret nano-energy plans with China from a Chinese professor publishing AI safety studies. Hanging in the balance lies troops’ technological edge, veteran intelligence officials and academics say.

AI’s confusion over the timing and nature of research partnerships may obscure real espionage if humans are not the ultimate judge of foreign influence, they warn, with some academics fearing an AI-work slop redux of the “China Initiative,” where the first Trump administration charged dozens of ethnic Chinese scientists with espionage, only to drop nearly all charges.

“Automated vetting tools are extremely useful for vetting large datasets and identifying patterns of concern. But those tools are for decision support to help the people, the human analysts, assess context and intent,” said David Cattler, who, until September, led the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which screens personnel seeking security clearances.

The renewed focus on academic research security comes as tensions between the U.S. and China over AI intensify, with China ramping up both the development of low-cost AI models and its alleged exploitation of U.S. models.

The U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment reports that China “aims to displace the U.S. as the global AI leader by 2030,” in part, “by using its sizeable talent pool, extensive datasets, government funding and burgeoning global partnerships.”

Partnership is a complicated term in military “fundamental research” — studies that are publishable, rather than proprietary or classified, with potential defense applications.

For instance, mere co-authorship with a China-based scientist does not suffice to deny a U.S. researcher money, according to evolving academic research rules targeting foreign influence. Rather, to make the call, the Pentagon must assess each academic’s disclosures of external funding sources and affiliations.

According to a recently-declassified May 2025 inspector general report, such disclosures went unchecked because the Pentagon had not “requested additional government full-time equivalent employees to thoroughly review… and to conduct oversight of over 27,000 academic research awards.”

Defense News first obtained the report and the Pentagon’s response to a draft version through an open records request.

When asked about additional staffing, a Pentagon official pointed to orders in a January research security directive for the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) to identify “automated vetting and continuous monitoring capabilities” and create a common research grant database.

The mandate also calls for a year-long “damage assessment” of selected research transactions, including cases that the House Select Committee on China flagged, in part, using AI tools.

A September GOP-led Committee report alleged that the Pentagon subsidized 1,400 academic papers published between June 2023 and June 2025 involving partnerships with the Chinese government.

The Pentagon said in an emailed statement on Thursday that the department “is committed to protecting the integrity of U.S. research while fostering international collaboration. Our approach leverages advanced analytical tools to augment human expertise, ensuring a rigorous and fair review process.”

Machines Make the Same Mistakes

Several university representatives, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of policy discussions, note that AI-assisted risk assessments have, in the past, drawn false assumptions about U.S.-China research collaborations.

For instance, the AI-aided GOP House report mislabeled the state-backed Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics as the sponsor of a collection of nine essays, whereas the Wuhan lab supported only one essay that involved no U.S. authors or federal funding.

The report also mistook a Chinese military-affiliated author’s publication on single-electron transistors for a DOD-funded project, when it merely referenced work funded by the U.S. military.

House Select Committee officials declined to comment on the cases.

Averting foreign interference “is not as easy as just having better AI capacities, because we know that some of those AI mistakes were the same human mistakes that led to inaccurate charges brought against researchers under the China Initiative,” Toby Smith, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at the Association of American Universities, said after learning of the AI gaffes.

About 30% of the China Initiative’s 77 cases involved academics not disclosing Chinese partnerships or funding sources, though disclosure was often not required, or no such partners or funding existed.

A jury found only one professor, Harvard nanochemist Charles Lieber, guilty, after he lied to Pentagon investigators about his participation in a Chinese talent recruitment program.

Smith said that relying on proxies — such as co-authorship, affiliation or nationality — to deduce security concerns led investigators to confuse co-authorship with direct interaction or shared data access, and to misinterpret historical ties as active partnerships.

“AI systems trained on bibliometric data,” or citation analytics, “and affiliation records can inherit the same flawed assumptions that underpinned the China Initiative,” he said. “The core lesson from the China Initiative is that identifying genuine research security risk requires judgment, context and proportionality — qualities that automated systems should support, not replace.”

Gisela Perez Kusakawa, executive director of the Asian-American Scholar Forum, said that the Pentagon has not communicated the types of data that the new AI tools will collect, use and share, nor sought community feedback, heightening concerns about ethnic profiling.

In an emailed statement, the Pentagon responded, “It is the standard practice of the department to not provide specifics regarding the criteria and weighting for threat assessments conducted, whether by manual or automated process.”

Kusakawa said, “We should be making sure that our research environment is welcoming, that we are encouraging these talents, especially in AI, to come to the United States and, frankly, have family in the United States, and make this a country that they contribute to and invest their and their children’s future in.”

Increasingly, that AI talent is not coming. Statistics suggest that Chinese AI experts are staying in China, even as America has managed to keep earlier expats.

Of about 100 Chinese-origin AI scholars who were researching at U.S. institutions in 2019 — when their papers were accepted at the world’s most elite AI conference, NeurIPS — 87% remained stateside as of 2025, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace figures.

At the same time, the share of Chinese home-grown talent not moving abroad has skyrocketed since 2019, based on an Economist tally of similar data. In 2019, about 30% of NeurIPS authors educated in China were still in China. By 2022, that population had jumped to 58%, and up to 68% in 2025.

‘Key’ Financial Disclosures Were Missing

To ensure that no country has a stranglehold on general knowledge, “the goal cannot be to close the U.S. research system altogether,” said Cattler, the former Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency director and now founder of consultancy Ironhelm Works. “The goal must be to ensure that collaboration strengthens national security rather than inadvertently weakening it.”

Last year’s inspector general report concluded that Pentagon agencies that partner with academic institutions “could be at an increased risk of exposure to foreign influence” because military units were “missing key documents” that can help discern scientists’ foreign financial sources, outside employers and other details related to potential conflicts.

For instance, about 80% of Air Force funding transactions sampled in the report were missing documents that can reveal problematic relationships. Also, the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which bankrolled the Internet’s inventors — told evaluators that they had not, as required, annually checked that researchers named in progress reports were not involved in banned talent recruitment programs.

In response to questions about the screening lapses, the Pentagon said in an emailed statement that the department “is aware of the OIG’s findings in the report and the impacted directorates are working with [the Office of the Undersecretary for Defense and Engineering] to address the items identified.”

Jeffrey Stoff, a Chinese linguist and intelligence community analyst for 18 years who resigned in 2021 due to frustration with research security, maintains that DOD still needs more human expertise in language, culture and the minutiae of research restrictions.

“AI can and should be used for unsophisticated, labor-intensive tasks,” such as cross-referencing foreign organizations in financial disclosure forms against the names of blacklisted parties, but humans still need to inspect AI’s work, as not all nefarious ties are machine-readable, said Stoff, who now advocates for tighter safeguards as head of the nonprofit Center for Research Security and Integrity.

Cattler, giving more credit to AI, said that the scale of research collaboration demands that the Pentagon upgrade its approach to clocking potential spies.

With such a large population of research institutions and affiliated scientists, as well as a bombardment of often duplicative alerts, automation “improves the signal within that noise and can help orient the humans on really important matters,” he said.

“Sometimes people are deliberately deceptive when they are processed, and that could happen in a human exchange just as much as it could happen in something that a computer can see, but together, a human review and a computer review are incredibly powerful.”

Aliya Sternstein is an investigative journalist who covers technology, cognition and national security. She is also a research analyst at Georgetown Law. Her writing on the intersection of public health and constitutional rights has appeared in the Stanford Law Review, Arizona Law Review, and other law and health academic journals.

Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters during a media roundtable at Sea-Air-Space 2026 in Maryland that food quantity and quality were meeting Navy standards. The comments came in response to a USA Today article, which claimed meals aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli were unappetizing and that small portions were leaving sailors hungry.

“In no way, shape or form, has there been a time where in, at least in this deployment, where they’ve not met the nutritional requirements of our menu,” Caudle said. “All ships had, I’m going to say, in the strike group, at least 10 days of food, and most were over 30 days of food.”

Caudle also said he had not received complaints about quality.

He’d heard gripes about a meal not being good, but that was a result of individual preferences based on rotating menu options.

Navy dishes out awards for top mess halls

The CNO argued the USA Today article “grossly mischaracterized” food service aboard the Tripoli and Lincoln and that parts were “false.”

Specifically, Caudle said that certain photos provided in the article were in fact photos of a shore galley, or a dining facility ashore, and not of a ship’s dining area.

The report also said service members aboard the USS Tripoli were rationing food, that there was no fresh produce and that the coffee machine onboard had stopped working.

Certain service members were sharing their food with others when they were served more, the article stated.

Hegseth took to social media to dispute the report, claiming there were no food shortages.

“My team confirmed the logistics stats for the Lincoln & Tripoli,” Hegseth said in an X post. “Both have 30+ days of Class I supplies (food) on board.”

The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations also denied the reports.

“Recent reports alleging food shortages and poor quality aboard our deployed ships are false,” the office said in an X post.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli are currently in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury.

The Lincoln departed from Naval Station San Diego, California, on November 21, 2025, while the Tripoli headed toward the Middle East from the Philippine Sea in March.

The Navy has made a push for healthier meals over the last decade with its Go for Green program, which was introduced in 2016 and helps promote better food options by using colors to flag which meals are the most nutritious.

But rather than separate sonars and helicopters for spotting mines and subs, the Navy is exploring the convenience of having one sonar that allows a single helicopter to perform both missions.

The service, therefore, is looking for a helicopter-borne dipping sonar capable of both anti-submarine warfare, or ASW, and airborne mine countermeasures, or AMCM.

“The multi-mission capability of such a sonar transducer assembly would also allow one aircraft, without reconfiguring, [to] cover both ASW and AMCM mission sets for reduced maintenance and reducing the equipment needed to be stored while afloat in space-constrained ships,” explained the Navy Small Business Innovation Research solicitation, which opens May 6 and closes June 3.

The sonar would be mounted on multi-mission helicopters. It would also be suitable for the Navy’s upcoming maritime strike future vertical lift platform, which will replace aging MH-60R and MH-60S helicopters.

Historically, acoustic ASW and AMCM have been different fields, with anti-submarine sonar and sonobuoys installed on medium-lift helicopters, and mine detection systems installed on heavy-lift helicopters.

Yet previous and “minimally funded” efforts to use ASW sonar for mine detection “have shown success in detecting nearly every naval mine based on post-flight data analysis,” according to the Navy.

“Enhancing that capability with a secondary frequency band and associated beam steering, as well as uniquely developed pulses and processing across both frequency bands, is expected to provide a significant AMCM capability while retaining both traditional ASW superiority and enhanced ASW detection and classification capabilities for certain scenarios,” the solicitation said.

The SBIR lists a variety of desired technical specifications, including a weight of less than 180 pounds, a stowed diameter no greater than 210 millimeters and an overall length no greater than 1,275 millimeters.

The device should be capable of inner- and middle-zone submarine detection. The primary acoustic transmit band for ASW would operate at 3 to 5 kHz, while a higher-frequency secondary band would handle AMCM.

In addition, “it would be a significant advancement in helicopter-based ASW capabilities if a tertiary frequency band below 2 kHz was also added to expand mission capabilities to broach wide area search and explore advantages of convergence zone type capabilities,” according to the solicitation.

Given that sonobuoys cost less than $15,000 apiece, “a highly capable sonar transducer design would be capable of being generated with a much more reasonable forecast production cost well below $500,000 each,” the service noted.

Phase I of the project involves scale electronic models, and using analysis and simulation to demonstrate inner- and middle-zone ASW as well as the ability to detect floating, moored and bottomed mines.

Phase II calls for a prototype that can be fitted on a Navy ASW-capable helicopter.

Phase III would see the prototype flight tested aboard an MH-60R in both ASW and AMCM scenarios. Dual-use applications include commercial undersea mineral exploration, and recovery of ships and aircraft lost at sea.

The Iranian-flagged M/V Touska was transiting the north Arabian Sea toward Bandar Abbas, Iran, when it was intercepted by the guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance and issued warnings that it was in violation of the blockade, U.S. Central Command announced on Sunday.

“After Touska’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period, Spruance directed the vessel to evacuate its engine room,” the CENTCOM release stated. “Spruance disabled Touska’s propulsion by firing several rounds from the destroyer’s 5-inch MK 45 Gun into Touska’s engine room.”

U.S. Central Command published a brief video of the encounter.

U.S. Marines assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit subsequently boarded the vessel, the release stated. The Touska remains in U.S. custody.

Acknowledging the encounter in a post on Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that “an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA, nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier, tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them.”

“The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom,” Trump added. “The TOUSKA is under U.S. Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what’s on board!”

The U.S. Navy blockade, which involves 10,000 troops, over a dozen warships and more than 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft, went into effect on April 13 following failed peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Any vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports are subject to the blockade, CENTCOM officials stated, while ships not visiting Iranian ports can still navigate the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran, meanwhile, said it would retaliate for Sunday’s incident, as tensions continued to escalate Sunday amid a fragile ceasefire.

“We warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy by the U.S. military,” an Iranian military spokesperson said, according to state media.

Iranian state media also reported that Tehran had rejected new peace talks, citing the ongoing blockade, threatening rhetoric and Washington’s shifting positions and “excessive demands.”

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others. The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” Iran’s First Vice President Mohammadreza Aref wrote on social media.

U.S. forces have encountered and redirected 25 commercial vessels since launching the blockade, according to CENTCOM.

Military Times reporter Riley Ceder and Reuters reporters Daphne Psaledakis, Trevor Hunnicutt and Saad Sayeed contributed to this report.

The new LSM is based on the Damen Shipyards Group’s Landing Ship Transport 100, or LST-100, design, which has a range of 3,400 nautical miles and can beach itself to deliver over 800 tons of cargo such as vehicles, embarked forces and long range fire assets, according to the video.

The ship, measuring roughly 100 meters, is also equipped with a flight deck that can support operations with unmanned aerial systems.

The Marine Corps framed the McClung-class ship as a supplemental asset within the broader fleet, capable of support operations across chains of islands or contested coastal areas, where smaller vessels can move more easily than larger ships.

“Crucially, the LST-100 is not a traditional amphibious warfare ship designed for large-scale assault,” the video stated, adding, “it is a complementary asset providing the essential intratheater logistics and maneuver that enable our larger amphibious fleet to do its job.”

The emphasis on more mobile platforms also comes as the Navy struggles with readiness challenges among its amphibious warfare fleet. A 2025 report found that readiness rates had dropped below necessary levels as maintenance delays and degraded ship conditions reduced the number of ships available for use.

The video nodded to tensions and competition in the littorals of the Indo-Pacific region, where the U.S. has increasingly focused on countering China’s expanding military presence.

The ships, the Marine Corps said, help the force establish a forward presence by getting troops, weapons and supplies on land to land and serve as part of a larger “sea denial strategy.”

From those land bases, American forces can control critical terrain and strike adversarial ships, the service said, to establish deterrence.

Navy leaders in December 2025 approved the ship’s design as part of a wider effort to revamp the Navy’s fleet.

The LSM, the video said, supports the “Golden Fleet” initiative, a concept coined by the Trump administration that centers on massive “Trump-class” battleships that the president announced in December of last year.

The concept, meanwhile, has drawn criticism. Chinese analysts have described the proposed battleships as potential easier targets for anti-ship weapons, and a recent analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies questioned the viability of such an idea, citing cost and long development timelines.

When the media finally reported they had been brought to safety, many breathed a collective sigh of relief — and our attention quickly zeroed in on the cinematic details of the daring rescue operation.

But there’s a layer to this story we need to unpack before the news cycle moves on. Because this rescue mission carried extra desperation, extra urgency.

Our downed service members were in even more danger than they needed to be — and it’s all because America’s topmost military leadership made it that way.

I’m the spouse of an active-duty service member, leading a nonpartisan organization of military family members stationed all across the globe. Our community comprises families from all different branches, ranks, and backgrounds — including, most relevant to this story, the family members of aviators.

Many pilots and air crew members carry something on their person called a “blood chit.” It’s a panel stitched to the inside of their flight jacket, translated into multiple languages, which says:

“I am an American. I do not speak your language. Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance … please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see that I am returned to my people.”

Rules of engagement exist in war for a reason.

They minimize harm to the unarmed. They ensure baseline humanity, in what is otherwise a tragic fog of violence. They’re not rules we unilaterally abide by just to be nice — they’re rules we rely on in return.

When a pilot deploys on a mission, and their spouse or child hugs them goodbye, this panel serves as a literal, physical reminder of the international norms meant to bring our service member home safely. It’s a promise we can feel.

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indulges in brash chest-thumping rhetoric — like saying our military will provide “no quarter,” “no mercy” to unarmed surrenders — it’s morally wrong (and frankly, embarrassing) for all the reasons many pundits have already said.

It’s also profoundly destabilizing for actively-serving military families. Because the military is an inherently dangerous job. Our military’s leadership is supposed to look out for the wellbeing of our service members, minimizing as much unnecessary risk to their safety as possible. Yet now, our leaders are doing the exact opposite — eroding the very foundations that safety is built upon.

Physical injury isn’t our only concern, either. Service members also encounter high risks of moral injury when the missions they’re sent to carry out are ambiguous or unjust, and when the actions they’re called to carry out diverge from what we know as right and decent.

Some injuries like these may take years to surface, but as family members of those who serve, we’re always the ones who end up shouldering the care-taking responsibility when they do.

We only call wars “endless” or “forever” if the fighting lasts longer than the public can stomach. But every war is a forever war for the families they impact.

One of the first details we learned from photos of the plane’s wreckage was that it had flown out of RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom. My family is currently stationed down the country road from that installation. While every military family knows what it’s like to see themselves reflected in news around war, that was especially true for my local community here.

It is imperative that our military’s highest civilian leaders restore our families’ confidence that rules of engagement will be honored by those who wear the uniform. Our loved ones’ safety depends on it.

Sarah Streyder is the executive director of the nonprofit Secure Families Initiative and the spouse of an active-duty service member currently stationed overseas.

The carrier is currently at Naval Support Activity Portsmouth, Virginia, after arriving at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on Jan. 8 to begin planned incremental availability following a nine-month deployment.

“Eight sailors were treated by ship’s medical and returned to full duty,” a Navy spokesperson told Military Times in an emailed statement.

The small fire that occurred was immediately contained, the spokesperson said, and extinguished by ship and shipyard personnel.

The Navy did not specify the cause of the fire.

The Eisenhower “remains on track” to complete its planned maintenance availability and return to the sea, according to the Navy.

Sailors aboard USS Gerald R. Ford reportedly lost their beds amid fire

The maintenance period is focused on providing technical updates and work on the carrier’s propulsion systems and combat systems, among other areas, to ensure “long-term mission readiness,” a Navy release said.

Before being sidelined, the Eisenhower deployed in October 2023 to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations and returned in July 2024.

The carrier, which included 4,000 people, as well as its strike group, battled Iran-backed Houthi drones during its time at sea and participated in Operation Prosperity Guardian, which saw the U.S. military defend commercial vessels in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks.

When the Eisenhower waded into Middle East waters in 2023, it was the first time a carrier had done so since 2021, when the Afghanistan war ended.

The fire aboard the Eisenhower was the second the U.S. Navy has dealt with aboard aircraft carriers in about a month. The USS Gerald R. Ford experienced what the Navy said was a non-combat related fire March 12 in the main laundry room that was so bad the carrier was forced to travel to Split, Croatia, for repairs.

The fire damaged 100 sleeping berths and injured three sailors.

The Ford, which was in the Red Sea in support of Operation Epic Fury when the fire occurred, returned to the Mediterranean Sea after a five-day port call in Croatia.

Close drew on his own family to find the character. His cousin served multiple tours in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as a special forces member, and one conversation stuck with him.

“He said he had to go back on his third tour because he didn’t feel safe at home,” Close told Military Times. “He felt more comfortable being in situations like Kandahar because he knew who the people were around him. He knew how to behave.”

That kind of detail is exactly what writer-director Aaron Davidman was after. A first-time feature director, Davidman spent years traveling the country talking to people about guns, violence and the cost of military service before writing the script.

A conversation with a former Army captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade became the seed of the story.

“He just impressed me with the real layered, nuanced, complex relationship to service, firearms, healing, reintegration,” Davidman said. “I decided to focus a story on a guy like that. What would it be like to follow a trained warrior and a reintegration through their eyes, through the experience of the veteran?”

The result is a film that resists the chest-pounding war movie template.

Slinger comes home from Afghanistan wounded and estranged from his young son, adrift in a country he trained to protect but no longer recognizes himself in. The film examines how, for some veterans, post-traumatic stress disorder and reintegration grief don’t manifest dramatically, but instead quietly erode a person from the inside.

Co-stars Joanne Kelly and Gilbert Owuor round out the film’s central trio, each character at a different point on the road back. Owuor said the dynamic mirrored something true about group identity and the loneliness that can live inside it.

“When you look closer and start to examine the different members in the group, you realize that even for them, that can start to break down depending on where you are in the journey,” he said. “And I think that’s a very scary place to find yourself.”

Kelly drew on her own family, as well, including a cousin who deployed four times to Afghanistan as a nurse. The preparation opened a conversation between them that had never happened before.

“I think it was one of the things I love about this job, the constant learning about humans, about different lives,” Kelly said.

Davidman has partnered with impact agency Picture Motion to build post-screening discussions into the release. It’s a deliberate response to the isolation the film depicts, and to a broader cultural moment the filmmakers believe demands a quieter kind of conversation than the one usually surrounding guns and military service.

“We’re not holding a screening, we’re convening,” he said.

For Davidman, the most revealing research didn’t come from one-on-one interviews but from watching veterans talk to each other.

“Watching these brothers and sisters share their stories, and they may not have even served at the same time or in the same branches, but there was a shorthand that was so informative,” he said.

That earned specificity shows on screen. “American Solitaire” doesn’t reduce its protagonist to a symbol. Slinger is a man trying to figure out who he is once the structure that defined him is gone, a challenge researchers and clinicians have long identified as among the hardest parts of coming home.

“I hope that people feel there is an accurate portrayal of veterans and of three-dimensional human beings going through real experiences,” Close said, “and that they can relate and feel less alone.”

“American Solitaire” opens in select theaters Friday and is coming to VOD at a future date. More information at americansolitairefilm.com.

Representatives from specialty courts and veterans’ legal organizations pressed Congress Wednesday for expansion of the Veterans Treatment Courts system and reinstatement of some Veterans Affairs benefits for imprisoned former service members.

They argued that while not all veterans convicted of serious crimes would benefit, those with other-than-honorable discharges or service-connected mental health or substance use disorders should have opportunities to change their lives.

Corey Schramm, an Army veteran who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after three deployments to Iraq and later was arrested following a blackout that involved a weapon, said a Kansas Veterans Treatment Court, where he underwent two years of treatment and mentorship, saved his family.

“I was on and off probation before I went to Veterans Treatment Court, and when I showed up, I thought I was going to play the system, go through the motions. Boy was I ever wrong. … VTC is not a shortcut,” Schramm said during a hearing Wednesday before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

The first Veteran Treatment Court was established in 2008 in Buffalo, New York, to provide medical treatment, supervision and mentorship to former service members with non-violent criminal convictions related to service-connected addiction or mental health conditions.

Today there are more than 600, and the Department of Veterans Affairs employs hundreds of Veterans Justice Officers to support veterans in jails or who are on parole, probation or in the court system.

But many veterans remain unaware of programs tailored to them or lack access to available services because they were discharged from the military with general or other than honorable discharges, rendering them ineligible for many Veterans Affairs programs and benefits.

Others may have lost access to their VA benefits when they were sentenced, since disability compensation is reduced when a veteran is convicted of a felony and incarcerated for more than 60 days and VA health care benefits stop when they enter a prison health system.

Rose Carmen Goldberg, director of the Veterans Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law, argued that incarcerated veterans should have access to VA behavioral health care, which provides expertise in combat-related mental health issues, sexual trauma or other service-specific concerns.

“Access to VA mental healthcare can literally be lifesaving. Veterans with a less-than-honorable discharge who are unable to access VA mental healthcare have a significantly elevated risk of suicide, a difference that disappears if they gain access,” she said.

Goldberg proposed that imprisoned veterans have access to VA services through telehealth and she supports a bill, the “Get Justice-Involved Veterans Behavioral Assistance and Care for Key Health Outcomes to Maintain Empowerment Act,” sponsored by Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., that would do that.

“VA-furnished mental healthcare is critical because it is more effective than private sector care,” Goldberg said.

Another key to improving outcomes for veterans who leave the service is reforming the Defense Department’s Transition Assistance Program, which several panelists argued was ineffective for preparing service members for non-military life, the panelists said.

According to retired Army Brig. Gen. David “Mac” MacEwen, director of the Veterans Justice Commission at the Council on Criminal Justice, the Defense Department spends billions on recruiting and training but just millions per year on TAP.

A commission found that TAP did not prepare 44% of its attendees for transition and 22% of transitioning service members never attended.

“The result is a fragmented and under-resourced system that leaves too many service members ill-prepared for civilian life. This lack of preparation increases their vulnerability to involvement in the criminal justice system,” MacEwen said.

Committee Chairman Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., conducted the hearing to better understand how to help veterans in judicial system and prevent them from entering it in the first place.

Moran sponsored a bill that was approved in January to fully fund Veterans Treatment Courts and provided $4 million to establish a National Center for Veterans Justice.

“We need to make sure that veterans who carry scars, with wounds — visible and invisible — are not forgotten,” Moran said.

Yet many jurisdictions do not have a veterans treatment court or those in law enforcement or the court system aren’t aware of these programs. Former Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss, a former Marine, said more courts are needed, noting that in Kansas, of the 89 veterans who have graduated in the past decade from the VTC program, just five have later been arrested, a 95% success rate.

According to Nuss, one of the first graduates from the Johnson County VTC was a combat veteran who told him he would “have been better off being killed in Afghanistan instead of coming home and being arrested for committing a violent crime.”

“He described his shame to me [as], ‘I went from hero to villain,’” Nuss said. “This justice-involved veteran suffered from unhealed PTSD. As has been said about such veterans, the painful paradox is that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be its citizen.”

The panelists also pressed for changes to the GI Bill that allow more veterans to access education benefits. According to MacEwen, the original GI Bill called for all veterans except those who received dishonorable discharges to receive education benefits.

MacEwen said that since the original language for the GI Bill was written in 1944, the VA has changed eligibility requirements.

“Congress explicitly wrote that individuals who were not discharged under dishonorable conditions should be eligible for VA care and benefits. However, the VA’s implementation has not aligned with this plain text, resulting in the unlawful denial of services to hundreds of thousands of veterans with other than honorable discharges,” MacEwen said.

Moran said he believes the VA and Defense Department must improve services for transitioning veterans but community organizations are vital to supporting veterans as well.

“All of our witnesses provide examples of why we work to support veterans when they transition out of the military, and the value they add to our communities and our country after their service when that transition goes well,” Moran said.

A global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network affecting millions of Starlink users had left two dozen unmanned surface vessels bobbing off the California coast, disrupting communications and halting operations for almost an hour.

The incident, which involved drones intended to bolster U.S. military options in a conflict with China, was one of several Navy test disruptions linked to SpaceX’s Starlink that left operators unable to connect with autonomous boats, according to internal Navy documents reviewed by Reuters and a person familiar with the matter.

As SpaceX rockets toward a $2 trillion public offering this summer – expected to be the largest ever – the company has secured its position as the world’s most valuable space company in part by being indispensable to the U.S. government with an array of technologies spanning satellite communications to space launches and military AI.

Starlink, in particular, has proved key to crucial programs - from drones to missile tracking - with a low-earth orbit constellation of close to 10,000 satellites, a scale that provides the military with a network resilient against potential adversary attacks.

But the Navy’s mishaps with Starlink for its autonomous drone program, which have not been previously reported, highlight the challenges of the U.S. military’s growing reliance on SpaceX and the risks it brings to the Pentagon.

“If there was no Starlink, the U.S. government wouldn’t have access to a global constellation of low earth orbit communications,” said Clayton Swope, a deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the drone test or SpaceX’s work with the Navy. The Pentagon’s chief information officer, Kirsten Davies, said the “Department leverages multiple, robust, resilient systems for its broad network.”

The Navy and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite facing growing competition from Amazon.com, which announced an $11.6 billion agreement this week to acquire satellite maker Globalstar, SpaceX remains far ahead in low-earth orbit communications.

Beyond drones, SpaceX has cemented a near-monopoly for space launches and provides satellite communications with Starlink and its national security-focused constellation, Starshield, generating billions of dollars for the company.

Last month, U.S. Space Force said it had reassigned its upcoming GPS launch to a SpaceX rocket for the fourth time, due to a glitch in the Vulcan rocket made by the Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance.

WARNINGS ABOUT RELYING ON SPACEX

Democratic lawmakers have warned the Pentagon about the risks of its reliance on a single company led by the world’s richest man to deliver crucial national security capabilities. More recently, the Defense Department’s disagreements and blacklisting of AI startup Anthropic quickly revealed how an over-reliance on one AI vendor could create problems should that vendor be dropped.

Reuters reported last year that Musk unexpectedly switched off Starlink access to Ukrainian troops as they sought to retake territory from Russia, denting allies’ trust in the billionaire.

In Taiwan, SpaceX faced criticism over concerns it was withholding satellite communications to U.S. service members based there, “possibly in breach of SpaceX’s contractual obligations with the U.S. government,” according to a 2024 letter sent by then-U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher to Musk, reported by Forbes at the time. SpaceX disputed the claim in a post on X.

Reuters could not determine whether SpaceX has since provided Starlink service in Taiwan to U.S. service members. The Pentagon and SpaceX did not respond to questions about Taiwan.

“As a matter of operational security, we do not comment on or discuss plans, operations capabilities or effects,” an official said in a statement.

STARLINK ‘EXPOSED LIMITATIONS’

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband has been crucial to the Pentagon’s drone program, providing connection to small unmanned maritime vessels that look like speedboats without seats, and include those made by Maryland-based BlackSea and Austin, Texas-based Saronic.

In April 2025, during a series of Navy tests in California involving unmanned boats and flying drones, officials reported that Starlink struggled to provide a solid network connection due to the high data usage needed to control multiple systems, according to a Navy safety report of the tests reviewed by Reuters.

“Starlink reliance exposed limitations under multiple-vehicle load,” the report stated. The report also faulted issues linked to radios provided by Silvus and a network system provided by Viasat.

In the weeks leading up to the global Starlink outage in August, another series of Navy tests was disrupted by intermittent connection issues with the Starlink network, Navy documents reviewed by Reuters show. The causes of the network losses were not immediately clear.

Despite the setbacks, the upside of Starlink – a cheap and commercially available service – outweighs the risk of a potential outage disrupting future military operations, said Bryan Clark, an autonomous warfare expert at the Hudson Institute.

“You accept those vulnerabilities because of the benefits you get from the ubiquity it provides,” he said.

Ferencz, who died in 2023 at the age of 103, was just 27 with no previous trial experience when he became chief prosecutor in one of the most significant murder trials in history.

While Congress voted to bestow the medal to Ferencz in 2022, his family members were on hand to posthumously receive the honor this week during the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance commemoration at the U.S. Capitol.

“Mr. Ferencz was a tremendous force for good, a fierce New Yorker with a heart of gold and a backbone of steel, a man who saw the worst of humanity and spent the better part of a century fighting for the best of it,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., during the ceremony.

“He came face-to-face with evil, recalling the fact that he had quote, peered ‘into hell,’” Gillibrand continued. “A lesser person might have looked away. But Ben Ferencz looked harder.”

Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz, who was the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, emigrated with his family to the United States when he was an infant to escape anti-Jewish pogroms.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, Ferencz enlisted in the U.S. Army and was given the job of anti-aircraft artillery gunner.

“In their typical [Army] brilliance, being a Harvard Law School graduate and an expert on war crimes, they assigned me to clean the latrines in the artillery and do every other filthy thing they could give me,” Ferencz reminisced about the Army’s odd job placement in a 2016 interview with The Washington Post.

The outspoken Ferencz, who barely registered over five feet tall, eventually rose to the rank of sergeant as a member of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army. Action during the Normandy invasion followed, as did breaking through the Maginot and Siegfried lines, crossing the Rhine and bitter fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

After Ferencz’s honorable discharge in 1945, Gen. Telford Taylor, then the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, recruited Ferencz to return to Germany and work with a team of investigators tasked with uncovering the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Tasked with gathering credible evidence of Nazi war crimes for the Army’s War Crimes Branch, Ferencz encountered the depths of human depravity. The Germans maintained meticulous death registries at the camps of Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg and Ebensee. These registries, which Ferencz was ordered to collect, contained the names of millions of victims.

“When I passed the figure of one million, I stopped adding,” he recalled in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “That was quite enough for me.”

It was there that Ferencz and his colleagues discovered the dossiers of the Nazi mobile death squads, the Einsatzgruppen — roving extermination squads that targeted Jews, Roma, homosexuals and political dissidents in Eastern Europe. In the subsequent trial, the International Military Tribunal determined that nearly two million Jews were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen.

“Death was their tool and life their toy,” Ferencz told the judge during the opening statement of United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et. al. “If these men be immune, then law has lost its meaning, and man must live in fear.”

All 22 men prosecuted by Ferencz were convicted. Most were sentenced to death.

The U.S. is trying to secure the strait from mines as part of efforts to end Iran’s disruption of shipping, which has severely curbed global energy supplies since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran at the end of February.

But while the U.S. can draw on modernized technology to remotely check for and remove mines, clearing a strategic waterway such as the Strait of Hormuz will still be a slow, multi‑step process, former naval officers and industry specialists say.

The U.S. military said over the weekend it had started the mine-clearing operation, sending two warships through the strait, but offered few details about the equipment involved. It said on Saturday that additional forces, including underwater drones, would join the effort in the coming days.

Iran had recently deployed about a dozen mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported last month, citing sources familiar with the matter. It is not publicly known where mines may have been laid.

U.S. President Donald Trump said over the weekend that all of Iran’s minelaying ships had been sunk. But there is a risk Tehran could deploy additional devices, some specialists said.

Mine warfare is effective because the devices are cheap, are costly to clear and “even the threat of a minefield is enough to stop ships, especially commercial ships,” said Jon Pentreath, a retired British navy rear admiral who is now a consultant.

MODERNIZING MINESWEEPING

Traditionally, the U.S. Navy relied on manned minesweeping ships that physically entered minefields, using sonars to locate the devices and mechanical gear dragged behind the vessel to clear explosives, sometimes supported by human divers. Much of that aging fleet has been retired.

They are being replaced by lighter vessels known as littoral combat ships, which carry modern mine‑hunting equipment such as semi‑autonomous surface and underwater drones as well as remote‑controlled robots that enable crews to distance themselves from the minefield. The navy has three of these in deployment.

Two of those ships were undergoing maintenance in Singapore, a senior U.S. official told Reuters in late March. At the time, the U.S. minesweeping capacity in the ⁠Middle ​East included unmanned undersea vehicles, four of the traditional Avenger-class vessels, helicopters ​and divers, according to the official.

The U.S. Navy did not respond to a comment request on the mine-clearing capability it currently has in the Middle East. U.S. Central Command declined to provide further details.

Tehran is believed to possess several types of maritime mines, former naval officials and other specialists say. These include bottom mines that rest on the seabed and detonate when ships pass above, tethered mines that are anchored but float closer to the surface, drifting mines that move freely on the water, and limpet mines that attach directly to a ship’s hull.

The U.S. operation will likely involve searching for mines using unmanned surface and underwater vehicles equipped with sensors. Once a mine‑like object is detected, the data is typically transferred to crews operating outside the minefield, who identify the device. They then determine how it should be neutralized.

The Navy’s search capability now includes sonar-mounted unmanned surface and undersea vehicles, as well as helicopters that are used to spot mines near the surface, former naval officials say.

To destroy mines, the Navy can deploy systems such as the torpedo‑shaped Archerfish, a remotely operated device about 2 meters long that carries an explosive charge and transmits video back to operators via cable, according to its manufacturer, BAE Systems. Designed to be expendable, it costs tens of thousands of dollars.

The U.S. could also use unmanned boats towing mine‑sweeping sleds that trigger detonations or gather mines, said Bryan Clark, a retired U.S. naval officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Human divers are also sometimes used, including for intelligence gathering, specialists say.

SLOW PROCESS

Clearing the strait could take two or three weeks, Clark said, and Iranian attacks on mine‑clearing crews could slow the process and raise risks. As a result, he said, the U.S. military may deploy defensive measures like ships and airborne drones to defend crews and equipment.

“Finding and destroying mines is very time consuming,” U.S. Admiral Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said in March. That leaves mine‑clearing capability “vulnerable,” he added.

New technologies are being developed to speed up mine clearance, particularly through advances in sensors used for detection, specialists say.

French technology and defense group Thales says its latest sonar can scan a suspected mine from three different angles in one pass, a process that typically requires multiple sweeps.

Advances in artificial intelligence are also enabling more data analysis to be carried out onboard unmanned vessels.

Longer term, the ambition is to deploy groups of unmanned systems that can search for, identify and destroy mines, rather than it being a multi-step process.

“That doesn’t exist today,” said Mark Bock, a retired U.S. Navy captain who is now vice president of business development at Thales’ U.S. Navy business. “But it is what all nations are trying to achieve now.”

“We’re not ready to come to you with a request. We’re still working on it. We’re working through to figure out what’s needed,” Vought told a hearing of the House of Representatives Budget Committee. “I don’t have a ballpark.”

The cost of the war with Iran, which Trump began alongside Israel on February 28, has remained an open question on Capitol Hill. An initial $200 billion request for additional funding for the war met with stiff opposition in Congress last month.

Vought appeared before the panel to discuss Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027, with its $500 billion increase in military spending and 10% reduction for non-defense programs.

The request is intended to reflect Republican priorities heading into the November midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republicans hope to retain control over the House of Representatives and the Senate but face growing public concern about the cost of living, energy prices and the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

‘Never passed an audit’

Democrats took issue with Vought’s assertions that healthcare, education and low-income energy assistance programs were marred by fraud.

“I’m so glad you asked about fraud, because you are coming back to ask for a $1.5 trillion budget for the Department of Defense,” Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington state told the budget director. “The Department of Defense is the only federal agency that has never passed an audit ... But you’re not going after any of that.”

Vought said the administration is pursuing “inefficiencies” at the Pentagon.

“I don’t think you’re doing enough,” said Republican Representative Glenn Grothman, who called for a Pentagon audit to be completed before Congress votes on defense spending.

“There is so much arrogance in that agency,” added Grothman, of Wisconsin. “They just say we don’t have to do it on audit. We’re so damn important. We don’t care what Congress thinks.”

Vought promoted Trump’s budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning October 1 as aimed at reducing spending. He promoted Trump’s 2025 tax-cut-and-spending package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” as an initiative that achieved $2 trillion in mandatory savings through cuts to Medicaid health coverage and food assistance to low-income families.

That bill, which extended 2017 tax cuts, will add $4.7 trillion to U.S. deficits over the next decade, while reduced immigration will add another $500 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Straight face

Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the budget panel’s top Democrat, pointed to forecasts saying the legislation’s healthcare cuts would mean the loss of health coverage for more than 15 million people. Vought said they were able-bodied adults, people in the country illegally or ineligible for benefits.

“You’re going to sit here with a straight face and say they’re all illegals? They were all defrauding the system? That’s actually your position?” Boyle asked.

“Yes,” Vought replied.

Democratic Representative Scott Peters of California pointed out to Vought that the watchdog Government Accountability Office has found the administration illegally withheld billions of dollars allocated for National Institutes of Health grants, public schools and Head Start early education programs nationwide.

“Do you dispute GAO’s findings?” Peters asked.

“Yes. GAO is typically wrong. They’re very partisan,” Vought replied.

GAO disputed that claim.

“That’s not accurate,” spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek said in an email. “GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that Congress has long ⁠relied on ​for fact-based analysis of federal spending and compliance with the law.”

To become law, Trump’s proposed budget needs approval from Congress at a time when Republicans are trying to overcome Democratic opposition to funding for Trump’s immigration crackdown, just months after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Democrats have already declared the budget proposal dead on arrival, leaving government funding to closed-door negotiations between appropriators.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance redirected the vessel back toward Iran after it fled Bandar Abbas, exited the Strait of Hormuz and was making its way along the Iranian coastline, according to a CENTCOM release.

“Ten vessels have now been turned around and zero ships have broken through since the start of the U.S. blockade on Monday,” the command’s post on X stated.

The U.S. Navy blockade, which involves 10,000 troops, over a dozen warships and more than 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft, went into effect Monday after President Donald Trump announced on social media that the U.S. would seal off the Strait of Hormuz following failed peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Any vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports are subject to the blockade, CENTCOM officials stated Tuesday, while ships not visiting Iranian ports can still navigate the Strait of Hormuz.

The America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli is also in the Arabian Sea in support of the blockade.

Failed peace talks occurred on April 11 and 12 in Islamabad, Pakistan, and involved Vice President JD Vance, along with special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The talks did not yield the intended result after Iran refused to allow the removal of enriched uranium from the country and commit to ending their nuclear program, according to Vance.

The U.S. and Iran are currently in the midst of a two-week ceasefire, which went into effect on April 7.

Despite the decline, however, the rate of suicides among military spouses and dependent children has actually risen slightly, the result of a declining population and continued deaths, according to the Defense Department.

According to the DoD’s 2024 Annual Report on Suicide in the Military released last month, 146 military family members, including 98 spouses and 48 dependents, died by suicide in 2023, the same number as the previous year. But the rate — 6 deaths per 100,000 people — rose from 5.8 per 100,000 in 2022 as the number of total family members dropped over the time frame.

Moreover, based on data the DoD received in 2024, the rate has increased steadily since 2011, with a rising rate of suicide among male spouses factoring heavily into the increases. In some years — 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020 — male military spouses had higher suicide rates than the U.S. male population, according to the data.

“Male spouses accounted for nearly two-thirds of suicides among military spouses despite representing a much smaller share of the overall military spouse population (14%). These findings are similar to the U.S. population, which consistently shows ”males are more likely to die by suicide than females,” the report noted.

The Pentagon began publishing data on military family suicide in 2019 as part of a requirement in the fiscal 2015 Carl Levin and Buck McKeon National Defense Authorization Act. Lawmakers expressed concern at the time that no one knew the extent of the problem among military family members.

The data is important because in addition to tracking the deaths, it acknowledges the problem and can influence prevention efforts, explained Carla Stumpf Patton, vice president of suicide prevention and postvention for Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS,

“We’re acknowledging the mental health care around family members and dependents, which oftentimes [i]s overlooked,” said Stumpf Patton, whose first husband, Marine Sgt. Richard Stumpf, took his own life in 1994. “There’s so much more emphasis around prevention and education efforts on service members and not enough focus on the family as a system, so the fact that we are [tracking] that is critical.”

According to the report, 98 spouses died by suicide in 2023, including 67 spouses of active-duty personnel, 18 Reserve spouses and 13 National Guard spouses.

More than a third were on active duty themselves in dual military marriages and another quarter were veterans. The findings are significant because both the military and veterans populations have experienced increases in deaths by suicide in the past 25 years coinciding with the decades-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Given differences in population size and demographics, comparing Service member and military spouse suicide rates may be misleading. For example, a majority of male military spouses who died by suicide had a history of military service,” the report noted.

According to the report, 48 dependents died by suicide, including 31 who were under age 18. Seventeen of those deaths were ages 18 to 22. The latter group is notable, according to the report authors, because although that age group makes up just 7% of the dependent population, it accounted for 35% of the suicide deaths among dependents.

“This finding aligns with U.S. population trends, as suicide rates are typically higher among young adults,” the report stated.

The report contains data for 2023, the most recent year that information is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That same year, the suicide rate for the U.S. general population was per 14.1 per 100,000, more than twice the military family rate, according to the CDC.

The report also found:

• Firearms were used in nearly 70% of the suicide deaths of military spouses, while asphyxiation or hangings accounted for 44% of dependent deaths, followed by firearms.
• 81% of the spouses were under age 40.
• More than 60% of military dependents who died by suicide were male.
• Suicides declined for military dependents, falling from 53 in 2022 to 48 in 2023, a rate of 3.5 suicides per 100,000 in 2022 to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2023.

The authors also noted the unique aspects of military life that have an impact on children’s mental health.

“Military dependents face their own unique life experiences such as the stress of having to change schools every few years or the worry that comes with a parent being deployed. The impact of these stressors may vary with age,” they wrote.

Stumpf Patton noted that while the numbers are specific and drawn from state and federal resources, they may not show the entire picture of military family suicide because often suicides are not recorded accurately on death certificates or another cause of death may be listed.

The DoD and the military services have implemented numerous programs to prevent suicide among military members and promote the self-storage of firearms, mental health treatment and spouse employment to address issues in military families that could lead to self-harm.

Stumpf Patton said the DoD has taken tremendous steps in the past two decades to support service members and families affected by suicide.

She added, however, that even with resources available, the community needs to continue to reduce risk, increase safety and foster a sense of community to support military families.

“Access to quality care, making sure we can increase support systems, making sure that it’s known to military family members that the services are there, that they can trust in those services [and] that they are not alone” are important, Stumpf Patton said.

TAPS and other organizations that support military families are critical to reducing suicides in the military, she added.

“When we can support all of those after a suicide loss, including the immediate family members, we always are trying to reduce risk and increase safety and ultimately save lives,” she said.

The USS Abraham Lincoln previously held that record, having deployed for 295 days in January 2020.

The USS Nimitz was at sea for a record 341 days in 2020 and 2021, but parts of that deployment were plagued by quarantine periods intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, which saw the carrier stationed ashore. The Nimitz was forward-deployed in support of American security interests for only 263 days, factoring in those isolation periods, according to USNI News.

The Ford’s record didn’t come as a surprise.

During a March 31 appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said the carrier would likely see a “record-breaking deployment.”

And Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby told lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Committee in March that he expected the Ford to reach an 11-month extended deployment.

The current record for longest deployment, modern or historic, is held by the USS Midway, which was at sea for 332 days during the Vietnam War.

USS Gerald R. Ford docks in Greece for port call after fire

Ford’s milestone didn’t come easy.

On March 12, the carrier dealt with a non-combat related fire in the main laundry room while it was stationed in the Red Sea in support of Operation Epic Fury, the Navy said.

The fire damaged 100 sleeping berths, injured three sailors — one of whom had to be flown off the vessel for medical attention — and forced 200 other sailors to receive treatment for smoke-related injuries.

As a result of the damage, the carrier traveled to Split, Croatia, for maintenance and repairs over five days before returning to sea.

The carrier is now operating in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Ford has also experienced plumbing problems with the nearly 650 toilets onboard, specifically with the carrier’s vacuum collection, which transports and disposes wastewater.

The Ford called for maintenance assistance 32 times in 2025, according to an NPR report.

The USS George H.W. Bush and its strike group departed from Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31 for a regularly scheduled deployment.

The Bush could relieve the Ford of its duties in order for the vessel to return home, or it could serve in tandem with the carrier in the Middle East. The Navy has not announced its plans for either carrier.

In particular, they cite the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which sits at the mouth of the Red Sea just off the coast of Yemen. The waterway is highly susceptible to attack from the Iranian-backed Houthis, who control most of Yemen.

“The Houthis are the ones who pioneered, in a way, this idea of using asymmetric capabilities to disrupt maritime traffic,” Mona Yacoubian, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview with Military Times. “It has to be the right set of circumstances, but we could potentially see a situation in which they choose to engage on Red Sea shipping and ships attempting to cross the Bab el-Mandeb and also — by virtue of which way the water flows — the Suez Canal.”

Skeptics fear that if the Houthis stepped fully off the sidelines and into an aggressive posture on Bab el-Mandeb, another economic shock would result. This, in turn, would greatly complicate Trump’s desire to claim a victory in the war on Iran that began with combined U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28.

Elisabeth Kendall, president of Girton College at the University of Cambridge, said that the Houthis’ restraint thus far should be seen as strategic patience, not avoidance.

“The reality is that asymmetric warfare suits the Houthis. They don’t need to be accurate or sophisticated. They just need to harass shipping to achieve their goal of disrupting trade and pressuring the U.S.,” Kendall told Military Times. “The Houthis are seasoned fighters. They have been at war — on and off — for over 20 years. Their battle logic is unlike our own inasmuch as war has become a way of life and they are relatively comfortable with absorbing casualties."

Kendall explained that a Houthi attempt to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would “likely prompt a further spike in oil prices and, in time, inflation,” significantly ramping up pressure on Trump.

This all takes place against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. After peace talks reached an impasse over the weekend, Trump recalibrated his strategy, aiming to turn the tables on Iran’s economy by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz.

On Sunday, the president said the U.S. Navy would begin blockading “any and all ships trying to enter, or leave,” the strait. By Monday, U.S. Central Command had refined the operational scope to only apply to vessels bound for or departing Iranian ports. CENTCOM stressed that it would not impede on the freedom of navigation and will be “enforced impartially.” The Pentagon has not explained how the mission would be carried out.

Under international maritime law, naval forces have the right of visit and search, which authorizes them to board vessels — regardless of flag — to determine their “enemy character.” This categorization hinges on whether ships are materially supporting Iran’s war effort, including through arms transfers or financing. If so, they may be subject to diversion or capture by U.S. forces.

James Kraska, professor of international law at the Naval War College, told Military Times that the approach essentially constitutes an expansion of longstanding bipartisan sanctions targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The U.S. sanctions are so aggressive that it’s sanctioned other entities that aid or facilitate transactions that benefit Iran,” Kraska said.

He added that he sees the blockade and the American assertion of the right of visit and search as “simply a wartime extension of what we’ve been doing for a decade. It’s economic warfare.”

Trump’s blockade is expected to cost Iran roughly $435 million a day — or $13 billion a month — Miad Maleki, a former official with the Treasury Department, wrote in a post on X.

Vice President JD Vance has argued that with this move, Trump has flipped the script on the Islamic Republic.

“What [the Iranians] have done is engage in this act of economic terrorism against the entire world,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “They’ve basically threatened any ship that’s moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, as the president of the United States showed, two can play at that game.”

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Air Force Officer, has introduced the Women Add Resourcefulness and Resilience to Improve Operational Readiness (WARRIOR) Act, which would prohibit the military services from excluding service members from any “occupational speciality, career field, or assignment” on the basis of sex.

Houlahan was joined by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., a former Army Ranger and paratrooper, and Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., a former Naval intelligence officer. Others among the 36 cosponsors include Reps. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif; Pat Ryan, D-N.Y.; Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and Derek Tran, D-Calif. All are military veterans.

The bill, which lacks Republican sponsors, is explicitly described as a response to the Pentagon review and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments casting doubt on the ability of women to perform in keeping with established standards in ground combat roles.

“The WARRIOR Act proactively affirms women’s qualifications to serve in combat,” according to a statement from Houlahan’s office. “The legislation amends outdated law from 1996 and 2006 to ensure that women are judged on their skills, performance, and the gender-neutral standards that women in combat are already meeting and exceeding. In so doing, the WARRIOR Act prevents any exclusion of women in our Armed Forces.”

In addition to prohibiting gender-based exclusion from jobs, the bill would require the Secretary of Defense to submit an annual report to the House and Senate Armed Services committees outlining any changes to occupational standards enacted in the previous year, “including a description of how such change predicts performance of actual, regular, and recurring duties of a military occupational specialty.”

The report must also include how many members were involuntarily moved to new jobs or separated from the service “for reasons other than discipline or pursuant to a sentence of a court-martial.”

It includes an 18-month evaluation period to add new job standards, and creates categories designed to ensure that military occupational standards reflect job requirements, separating skill categories into technical, tactical, cognitive and physical.

The bill further calls for the Pentagon to provide the committees with a copy of the combat effectiveness review, which originally was set to be completed by the Institute for Defense Analyses, but was just this month reassigned to Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

According to an NPR analysis, about 4,500 female service members now serve in ground combat roles in the Army and Marine Corps.

The lawmakers rolled out the legislation at the end of March, surrounded by leaders of a range of progressive veterans organizations, including those focused on supporting female and minority veterans.

“Since the founding of our nation, women have proudly and honorably served in defense of our country. This commonsense update to gender-neutral occupational standards reflects what we already know to be true: women are a force multiplier across the military,” Kyleanne Hunter, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a released statement.

“As the fastest-growing group of recruits, ensuring women remain eligible to serve in all roles is not only grounded in science — it’s essential to our national security. IAVA is encouraged to see standards that reflect both our nation’s mission and the modern force that serves it,” she concluded.

At this point, there has been no proposal to reverse the military-wide policy that opened up combat roles to women in December 2015. Likewise, it’s not precisely clear how policy will follow Hegseth’s dictum last September that women in combat roles meet “the highest male standard.”

In a separate statement, Crow cited his experiences serving alongside female service members on deployments.

“When I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, I served alongside badass women who risked their lives to protect our nation,” he said. “Anyone willing to put on the uniform and defend this country deserves our support.”

The move places U.S. forces at the center of a key global shipping route after President Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime corridor through which much of the world’s oil shipments flow.

The blockade began Monday morning and applies to all vessels coming and going from Iranian ports, the command said on social media, adding on Tuesday that six merchant ships had followed orders to turn around. Vessels not engaging with Iranian ports remain free to navigate the Strait of Hormuz.

CENTCOM, the military command responsible for overseeing operations in the Middle East, said the endeavor has also included upwards of 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft. Some other assets involved include guided missile destroyers, unmanned aircraft and a littoral combat ship.

The command confirmed Tuesday in a separate statement that 3,500 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Tripoli were in the Arabian sea as part of the blockade.

The amphibious assault ship arrived in the Middle East in late March.

Defense analysts have warned that enforcing a military blockade could stress the two countries’ brittle ceasefire and push Tehran — or Iran-aligned groups — toward retaliation. A blockade of this scale, experts also said, would be difficult to sustain over a long period of time and could impact energy prices, which in turn may influence the U.S. midterm elections.

Trump on Sunday also said U.S. forces would stop any vessel that paid an Iranian toll, but it is unclear if that pronouncement has been implemented.

The 100-year-old South Carolina native received the National Order of the Legion of Honour on April 9 from Anne-Laure Desjonquères, the French consul general, who noted “Mr. Cook, you are a true hero — your example gives us inspiration for the future and your legacy provides a moral compass for generations to come.”

First established by Napoleon Bonaparte in May 1802, The Order is the highest decoration in France and is divided into five degrees: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), Commandeur (Commander), Grand Officier (Grand Officer) and Grand Croix (Grand Cross).

Roughly 10,000 Americans have been awarded France’s highest distinction, with most recipients being World War II veterans who played a role in liberating France.

“There is no way that I can even attempt to explain the feeling,” Cook said at the ceremony. “As far as I’m concerned, I am so unworthy. I want to be a representative of the people who didn’t come back. They are the ones who paid the real sacrifice.”

For three years, from 1942 to 1945, daylight bombing runs by the 8th’s Flying Fortresses over Nazi Germany unleashed 697,000 tons of bombs.

Of that total, more than 47,000 were from the 8th.

Of that 47,000, the 379th Bomb Group — of which Cook was a part of — dropped 26,459 tons.

The effort to pry the claws of the Third Reich from Europe was met with deadly resistance, prompting torturous contemplation of one’s own mortality while being confronted with casualty totals that, by war’s end, would exceed 115,000 personnel from the U.S. Army Air Force.

Despite such odds, Cook told the WWII Veterans History Project, “Anytime I got in that plane and we took off, I told myself that I’m coming home. That was my attitude.”

Enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943, Cook had dreams of becoming a P-38 fighter pilot. However, according to Cook’s account in the WWII Veterans History Project, he washed out of cadet training for what the Army called a “negative attitude regarding military aviation.”

Undeterred, the slender, 138-pound Cook found his way back to aviation, this time as an aerial gunner in the belly of the four-engine bomber.

“To me that was the most comfortable place in the plane. I was accustomed to that. I fit in it pretty good,” Cook told ABC 25 Columbia.

Flying with the of 524th Bomb Squadron, 379th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force out of Kimbolton, England, Cook participated in the bombings of enemy rail yards, airfields, factories, communication centers, synthetic fuel factories, rocket sites and enemy troop concentrations within France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Holland.

According to the South Carolina legislature, the 379th’s combat record “was the most successful of all the 8th Air Force heavy bomber groups. The unit held records as far as bomb tonnage dropped … and exceeded all other United Kingdom-based Bomb Groups in the total number of missions flown, carrying out 330 missions between May 1943 and May 1945.”

Cook participated in the air cover during the Battle of France, bombing enemy positions from Normandy through the breakout at St. Lo, as well as during the Battle of the Bulge and the Allied assault across the Rhine River into Germany.

“We would bomb just about anything that would disrupt the [German] war effort,” he explained to the Veterans Project.

Cook flew his last mission — his 35th — on Feb. 16, 1945, and was discharged in October of that year. The veteran returned home to Lexington, South Carolina, where he ran a jewelry store for more than 20 years before his retirement in 1983.

“The Lord’s just been good to me,” said Cook at the ceremony last Thursday. “I have really enjoyed life, and I just thank the Lord for what he’s done for me.”

The six-month independent review, commissioned by Undersecretary of Defense Anthony Tata in December, was originally set to be performed by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a Washington, D.C.-area nonprofit that administers three research centers supported by federal funding. The effectiveness study, according to a Pentagon official, was set to kick off with the 10-year anniversary of Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s lifting of the ban on women in ground combat roles at the end of 2015.

This review, the official told Military Times on Monday, is “in line with standard [Department of War] practice for evaluating the effects of significant policy changes.”

But a reevaluation of study requirements has led to a reassignment of the work, the official said.

“The Department has since recognized the need to incorporate combat-relevant field tests, based on established tasks, conditions, and standards, into the independent review to produce the comprehensive data required for this effort,” the official said. “DoW has engaged the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to assume responsibility for the study from IDA, effective April 2026. JHU/APL, a University Affiliated Research Center, has the capability to examine existing personnel and operational data, as well as conduct the field tests, ensuring a unified effort that will further posture our warfighters to meet mission objectives.”

JHU/APL will now complete work over the next 12 months to inform what’s now being called the “Performance, Readiness, and Integrated Mission Effectiveness Assessment,” according to the Pentagon. The assessment will use established analytical techniques “to identify the dominant drivers of combat performance variance in ground combat units and provide evidence-based findings to inform force design, training, physical standards, and readiness decisions,” the official said.

A request for information to JHU/APL for more details on the study and data collection milestones did not receive an immediate response.

Pentagon officials emphasized the long tradition of conducting reviews of policy changes, citing specifically an internal assessment of the 2010 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal that was conducted in 2021, and reviews by the Pentagon-connected Rand Corporation of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 and the Blended Retirement System of 2015.

Historically, these analyses have been used to evaluate major changes and their impacts, but have not carried with them the possibility of reopening the matter for potential reversal. It’s not clear that the same considerations are in play here.

In a December memo first reported on by NPR, Tata described the review as gauging “the operational effectiveness of ground combat” elements and the impact of permitting women to enter the roles.

Leaders of the Army and Marine Corps were asked to provide the Institute for Defense Analyses with a broad slate of data ranging from training performance to command climate; and metrics showing individual service members’ readiness to deploy.

An email from Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson at the time also appeared to open the door to changes based on the review, saying the Pentagon “will not compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda — this is common sense.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed opposition to women serving in combat roles in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” saying they couldn’t meet the physical requirement and adding, “We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”

His Senate confirmation hearing in 2025 softened the stance. He said then that women would continue to have access to ground combat roles, “given the standards remain high.”

In September, he announced that ground combat jobs would be reserved for those who meet “the highest male standard.”

The Pentagon official said the pending combat effectiveness review, now to be carried out by JHU/APL, showcased the military’s commitment to “continuous learning and improvement.”

“These types of studies enable the Department to maximize our efforts in support of peace through strength,” the Pentagon official said Monday. “The ‘Performance, Readiness, and Integrated Mission Effectiveness Assessment’ is expected to further this tradition, increasing the lethality and readiness of the force.”

A Center for Maritime Strategy report, released Friday, argues that amid an “atrophy” of the maritime industrial base, the U.S. should utilize its partnerships with naval allies to boost its shipbuilding, technological and strategic capabilities.

This assessment comes while the Navy is in the spotlight for playing a large part in the war in Iran, a conflict that puts strain on the Navy’s already diminished assets and does not indicate signs of slowing down.

The Center for Maritime Strategy, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank that focuses on U.S. maritime issues and their broader national security implications, highlighted in its report that the Navy has yet to reach its shipbuilding goal.

“The U.S. [maritime industrial base] must be reconstituted quickly, utilizing the most modern equipment and procedures to meet the growing threats to the United States and its allies and partners,” the report reads.

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget request allots $65.8 billion for shipbuilding to produce 18 battle force ships and 16 nonbattle force ships, doubling the amount of ships produced in fiscal 2026.

This increase is an effort to improve the maritime industrial base by manufacturing ships that are simpler to construct than battle ships, given their lack of radar systems and nuclear propulsion systems.

At a WEST Conference in February 2026, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said that the industrial base is less about items and more about ensuring people are incentivized to remain in the service.

“Everything costs what it costs,” Smith said at the conference. “I don’t want to pay $4 billion for a ship, neither does my shipmate [Chief of Naval Operations Adm.] Daryl Caudle. But that’s what it costs to have pipefitters, steamfitters, welders, electricians build the ship.”

Currently, the Navy consists of approximately 295 ships with that number expected to decrease as the service retires more ships than it plans to commission. Last year, the force noted its goal to retain a fleet of 381 over the next 30 years to counter global threats.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has sent more troops to the Middle East to support the ongoing war in Iran, including the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group and connected Maritime Expeditionary Unit. The forces include 5,000 personnel and many warships, such as the USS Tripoli, USS New Orleans and USS San Diego.

The amphibious ready group’s deployment follows a 2025 Military Times report that showcased a drop in the Navy’s amphibious assault ships’ readiness rate to 41% as a result of the Trump administration’s endeavor to combat drug cartels in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Center for Maritime Strategy recommended seven objectives in its report to improve the maritime industrial base, including reforming the design process, embracing new technologies and relying more on allies.

Out of all the recommendations, the report emphasizes the involvement of U.S. allies the most, specifically the Republic of Korea, Italy, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom, to model existing frameworks, use allied ports and supplement the domestic shipbuilding labor pool with migrants from the allied countries.

“For the Navy to meet the challenges it faces in the coming decades, the United States must take advantage of its strong partnerships with naval allies to support a collective revitalization of the allied maritime industrial base,” Kenneth Braithwaite, the 77th Navy secretary, said in the report’s foreword.