On Aug. 20, SBA proposed replacing nearly 1,000 industry-specific size standards and exceptions with 338 broader ones.

In common IT services categories, the threshold would rise from $34 million in average annual receipts to $531 million. SBA estimates 37,002 firms already in the federal market would newly qualify, holding more than 105,000 contracts worth about $71 billion in fiscal 2025.

SBA has legitimate reasons to act. The system is complicated, inflation has eroded the thresholds and businesses need room to grow. But that raises a narrower question: Should a $10 million SDVOSB compete for the same set-asides as an SDVOSB approaching $500 million?

An SDVOSB must be small under the standard assigned to a contract, in addition to being veteran-owned and controlled. If these thresholds hold, veteran-owned companies at dramatically different stages will compete head-to-head, and they are not similarly situated.

A firm with hundreds of millions in revenue has more capital, deeper past performance, bigger proposal teams and more room to absorb delayed payments, protests and lost bids. Most newly eligible firms will be $40 million to $200 million companies, and the advantage is the same.

We should want veterans to build $500 million companies. But a program built for veteran entrepreneurs should not pretend that gap does not exist.

Nowhere is this more consequential than at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which by statute must set work aside for veteran-owned small businesses whenever two can perform it, and which awarded roughly a quarter of its prime dollars to SDVOSBs last year.

The veteran-owned IT firms that outgrew that program would walk back through the door and compete against the firm that won its first VA contract last year.

SBA acknowledges that a larger pool may reduce existing small businesses’ chances of winning, and says the greatest effect will fall on firms most similar in size to the new entrants.

In a set-aside decided on past performance, staffing depth and price, the firm most likely to lose is the one with the least of each: the emerging veteran-owned business the program exists to serve.

SBA also states it is “not possible for SBA to accurately predict which newly classified firms would be eligible for certification,” and expects firms near the threshold not to certify.

That may be true elsewhere. It is not true where certification is free, takes weeks and unlocks a category one agency funds at roughly $10 billion a year. And the data to test it already sit in SBA’s own systems: VetCert, SAM.gov and FPDS show every firm that has held or lost SDVOSB certification, its size and its awards.

Before finalizing, SBA should publish an analysis. How many larger firms would qualify on both size and ownership, what they already receive and where smaller SDVOSBs would face the most new competition?

Depending on the data, SBA should adopt an SDVOSB-specific safeguard. SBA already uses program-specific size definitions elsewhere, and Congress can settle any doubt about authority.

One option is a separate upper threshold for SDVOSB set-asides where the general standard would otherwise rise into the hundreds of millions. Something like $75 million, roughly twice today’s standard, would let a firm double before graduating. The principle matters more than the number.

Congress has a vehicle ready. The bipartisan Contract Our Veterans Act of 2026 would set a 5% government-wide goal for veteran-owned small business contracting. A goal is only as meaningful as the field it is measured against, and the same bill could define that field so the goal is met by veterans building companies, rather than by a few already large ones.

No soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian or Coast Guardsman leaves the service and builds a $500 million company on day one. The SDVOSB program should be a working ladder to the open marketplace, not permanent shelter from competition. SBA can modernize and keep that ladder standing.

Comments are due Sept. 21, 2026, at regulations.gov, Docket SBA-2026-0199, and SBA must answer substantive comments in the final rule. If you own a veteran-owned business, tell SBA what this change would mean for you.

Justin Brown is CEO of The Nimitz Group, a Washington, D.C.-based government relations firm focused on veterans policy and federal procurement.

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

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

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

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

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

The photo op can’t hold it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extensive damage to one of our most significant forward bases in the Middle East is likely to have profound tactical and strategic repercussions that are only now coming into focus.

The idea that this broad functioning hub, built over decades, was significantly degraded in the space of a few days by a regional player is unimaginable.

I have fond memories of Bahrain both from past port visits, where it provided much-needed rest and relaxation, decent shopping and fitness options, and from my time as a government trainer when I flew over for shipboard training once every six months. I always felt safe there.

That NSA Bahrain is now virtually uninhabitable, with families left in limbo, as described in recent reporting, is difficult to grasp.

The damage is estimated to be close to $400 million. Buildings reportedly harmed include the Fifth Fleet headquarters, a barracks, several warehouses, communications towers and a potable water station.

Ships, including several U.S. Coast Guard vessels, appear to have been relocated, along with a large portion of the staff and their facilities. Thankfully, no one was killed or severely injured at the base, according to U.S. military sources.

It’s important to understand that NSA Bahrain is more than just a headquarters. Among its many functions, the installation provides a regional naval operating base for U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East. NSA Bahrain is home to NAVCENT and U.S. Fifth Fleet, along with numerous tenant commands.

Whenever ships, aircraft, personnel or cargo are moving throughout the region, chances are they have been supported by NSA Bahrain.

The installation provides the physical infrastructure that keeps American military power continuously available in a strategically vital region. It is foundational to America’s ability to project maritime power in this critical theater.

The idea that the U.S. could not prevent and defend against a predictable attack on a Fleet Headquarters — and our sailors stationed there — is quite startling. It likely is just as alarming to our allies.

The depth of NSA Bahrain’s impact became clear as the stories of scarcities of parts, food, mail and supplies to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln hit the news. Before long, pieces of the puzzle began falling into place as to the connection between ship supplies and the lack of a familiar resupply source.

Stretching supply lines that were once hundreds of miles away out to thousands of miles has far-reaching implications for forward-deployed ships and is likely to become a significant constraint in maritime operations.

Having deployed to the area multiple times, I can attest to such impacts. The fact that the U.S. did not preemptively — or at least expeditiously — evacuate families and dependents is truly mind-boggling. Even now, six months later, well over a thousand evacuated troops and their families are still in limbo, with many separated from pets and belongings due to the devastation.

The potential loss of NSA Bahrain is effectively the equivalent of losing an aircraft carrier. It could not have come as a surprise that Iran would attack it in retaliation, yet it — and those living and working there — were left exposed and the facilities inadequately protected from Tehran’s ballistic missiles.

The U.S. has superb air defense capabilities that could potentially have formed a near-impenetrable “dome” over our citizens, as they have over Israel and parts of Ukraine in recent history. Ballistic missile defense destroyers boast incredible defensive capabilities and could have been stationed effectively at sea to protect the Fifth Fleet Headquarters.

Instead, there is now talk of “reducing the footprint” of U.S. forces in the region, a “strategic retreat” that will have a significant impact on logistic support for our ships and troops in the region, making them even more vulnerable.

I commend Vice Adm. Curt Renshaw, the commander of Naval Forces Central Command, 5^th Fleet, and Combined Maritime Forces, for his honesty and candor when he told Bahrain evacuees at a town hall, “When we started this journey, there were some pretty clear rules. As we’ve moved on, we’re really in uncharted territory right now.”

Adm. Renshaw’s frustration is understandable. What is striking is not simply the physical damage, but the continuing uncertainty six months later surrounding the operational status and future of one of America’s most important naval headquarters — and importantly, the status of the personnel and their families.

What, precisely, is the current operational status of NSA Bahrain and the Fifth Fleet headquarters, and what capability did the U.S. lose when Iran demonstrated that it could strike this critical naval hub?

Fifth Fleet is still functioning, but the infrastructure from which it operated has been badly degraded. While there is certainly a need for operational security, it is important for the American people to understand how this situation happened, the magnitude of the impact and how repeating it can be avoided.

If NSA Bahrain is not reconstituted to something near its pre-attack capabilities, it will fundamentally change how the U.S. Navy operates, supplies and maintains its ships. It will also upend how we support regional coalition partners in the Gulf region.

It is my hope that it is resurrected with sufficient support and security to make it safe and viable again.

John Cordle is a retired Navy captain who commanded the destroyer USS Oscar Austin and the cruiser USS San Jacinto during his 30-year military career. He is a recipient of the U.S. Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership.

While the military trains medics relentlessly to treat the wound, we do not train them to handle the question.

I have spent years on both sides of that moment. I am a 68W combat medic instructor and a Tactical Combat Casualty Care instructor with the West Virginia Army National Guard, and I am also an endorsed chaplain.

This role encompasses teaching soldiers how to control hemorrhage and manage an airway to sitting with them months later, when the physical injury has healed, though something else has not.

The Army should close the distance between those two conversations by building trauma-informed care into how we train medics.

I expect the first objection, because I’ve made it myself. There is no time for feelings under fire. A medic has minutes, sometimes seconds, and every one of them belongs to the casualty needing life-saving treatment.

That objection misunderstands what trauma-informed care is. It should not be viewed as a separate task competing for time on the timeline. Instead, it is intertwined in the manner in which a medic performs the tasks.

Telling a casualty what you are about to do before you do it costs three seconds and keeps the individual from experiencing treatment as one more thing being done without warning.

Keeping a level voice and clear instructions is not bedside manner, but a technique that lowers physiological arousal in a patient who is already flooded. These should not be viewed as soft skills bolted onto medicine, but medicine itself.

The reason this matters is simple: soldiers are people first. They come to us carrying whatever burdens were there before the uniform — childhood adversity, losses, things never processed or disclosed. The injury a medic is treating, therefore, may not be that soldier’s first trauma. A medic who understands that will read the situation and respond differently than one taught to see only the wound.

With this approach, there are three key things every medic should be trained to recognize:

• Acute stress reactions: panic, dissociation, a casualty who has gone flat and unreachable.
• Post-traumatic symptoms in the days and weeks that follow: hypervigilance, nightmares, intrusive memories.
• Moral injury: the toll of having done, or failed to prevent, something that violates what you believe about yourself.

That last point is an area in which I have spent most of my career as a chaplain, and it is badly under-recognized in medicine because it does not present as a symptom.

Medics are positioned to catch all three areas earlier than anyone else in the formation. They are often the first medical contact for troops — and sometimes the only one — which makes them the gate to every referral that follows. A medic who has never been taught what to look for will not make the call. We know this is not a deficiency of compassion, but a general lack of awareness about what call to make.

So the ask is concrete. Add trauma-informed care instruction to 68W advanced individual training, and build it into annual recertification alongside TCCC, where it will actually stick.

Teach psychological first aid as a skill with steps: active listening, normalizing the stress response and connecting the soldier to resources. Teach medics how to avoid retraumatizing a patient during treatment. And make the handoff to a chaplain or behavioral health a taught, practiced action rather than something a medic must figure out alone. Doing so will contribute to both wellness and readiness.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that more than half of Americans have experienced a traumatic event, and the Department of Veterans Affairs reports higher rates of PTSD among women. Our formations reflect those numbers.

Soldiers whose psychological injuries are addressed early are more likely to return to their units and stay there. Every service member we lose downstream is a trained soldier who is not quickly replaced.

As the force plans for prolonged field care and longer evacuation timelines in future fights, medics will hold casualties longer before handing them off. Hours they spend with frightened, injured troops will matter more, not less.

Nothing in this approach is asking medics to become counselors. However, the Army must acknowledge that a medic is already doing psychological work in that moment, competently or not, trained or not. We might as well train to improve it.

Medics are taught to keep a body alive. We should also prepare them to help the soldier who walks away.

Staff Sgt. Jay Kotsko is a 68W combat medic instructor and Tactical Combat Casualty Care instructor with the West Virginia Army National Guard and an ecclesiastically endorsed chaplain. He holds a Doctor of Ministry in chaplaincy and is the author of “Even Here: Finding God in the Fractured Timelines of Trauma and Recovery.” The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official position of DoD, the Army or the West Virginia National Guard.

Human performance optimization, or HPO, is intended to improve health and readiness force-wide. Operator Syndrome, meanwhile, is a clinical construct that describes the cumulative health effects experienced by special operations personnel.

Comprehensive assessments of the two will require Pentagon leadership and the advisory council to establish a standardized, evidence-informed framework to assess special operations and other combat-focused jobs susceptible to cumulative operational injuries within the military health system.

The advisory council’s success will depend on both the recommendations it produces and its ability to develop a coherent, scalable framework for service members with suspected Operator Syndrome across the MHS.

Along the way, the council has a unique chance to shift the MHS from a fragmented, symptom-based approach to one that addresses cumulative effects of operational service through holistic, multidisciplinary care.

The value of this approach has been demonstrated by existing human performance and operator health programs such as the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Preservation of the Force and Family (POTFF) and the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) program.

Right now, the advisory council has an opportunity to leverage decades’ worth of lessons learned from these programs to establish evidence-based clinical standards for continuous evaluation and refinement.

As the science of Operator Syndrome evolves, this framework should function as a learning health system, with new evidence informing ongoing updates that improve health, function, and operational readiness.

Dr. Chris Frueh’s foundational work first introduced Operator Syndrome in 2020 as a multisystem effect resulting from allostatic load and cumulative operational exposure. This work has driven multidisciplinary research to develop standardized methods for its characterization and assessment.

One example of this ongoing work is the collaborative development and preliminary validation of a standardized self-report instrument to assess Operator Syndrome-related symptom patterns.

The Operator Syndrome Symptom Scale–Self Report, or OSSS-SR, is guided by existing scientific literature, multidisciplinary clinical expertise and principles of patient-reported outcomes. This multisystem screening tool is designed to identify common symptom patterns affecting the mind and body and to support occupational performance and overall health among operators.

Currently advancing to its next phase of development, the OSSS-SR includes items for the empirical evaluation of multiple symptom domains across physical, mental, physiological and other performance health systems.

As the advisory council establishes its agenda, it should actively encourage and leverage similar collaborations. The future of military medicine depends not only on government-led initiatives but also on strategic partnerships that unite operational experience and clinical expertise.

Ongoing research efforts, meanwhile, also reinforce an important implementation challenge.

A validated clinical framework should guide these new screening initiatives. Recognizing Operator Syndrome as a military health priority is an important first step, but sustainability will depend on the Pentagon’s ability to build the scientific infrastructure that supports evidence-based decision-making. The Pentagon should treat investment in measurement science as a foundational priority.

Implementing screening before establishing a validated clinical framework introduces avoidable risks. Without standardized assessment methods and evidence-based referral criteria, identification of Operator Syndrome will likely vary across providers and military treatment facilities, leading to inconsistent clinical decision-making, unnecessary referrals and missed opportunities to identify service members who would benefit from comprehensive multidisciplinary care.

These challenges are not unique to Operator Syndrome. Similar concerns have been raised by certain organizations — such as the Endocrine Society — about broad population-based testosterone screening.

The Endocrine Society supports targeted testing for individuals with specific symptoms and risk factors, emphasizing that no single symptom or biomarker should serve as the basis for identifying cumulative operational injury, and that laboratory findings should be interpreted in an appropriate clinical context to avoid unnecessary intervention.

While expanded screening may facilitate earlier identification of health concerns, testosterone testing should serve as the starting point — not the endpoint — of clinical evaluation.

Combining testosterone results with a comprehensive medical history, a validated assessment tool such as the OSSS-SR and additional laboratory testing provides a more complete picture of physiological dysfunction and supports more targeted, multidisciplinary care.

A holistic screening framework supports treatment of the impacts of occupational performance. This is essential for military readiness and retention and can improve screening and continuity of care during and after service.

Addressing Operator Syndrome through a single symptom or isolated laboratory value, such as relying on testosterone testing alone, or by evaluating the broader physiological systems increases the likelihood that the underlying condition will remain inadequately addressed.

Council members must understand military healthcare, its operational systems and clinical outcomes, and how to optimize health and wellness to enhance lethality.

Extensive research on Operator Syndrome and the development of a self-report instrument have emphasized the need for multidisciplinary expertise to enhance holistic assessments of special operations personnel.

It is imperative, therefore, that physical and psychological assessments and treatments be evidence-based and include continuous, cumulative diagnostics throughout a military member’s entire career.

The Pentagon must prioritize selecting a multidisciplinary group of health and policy specialists when evaluating the proposed advisory council’s nominated members. Relying on a single viewpoint for an entire advisory panel is as ineffective as isolating a single symptom in a comprehensive diagnosis.

Ultimately, ensuring warfighters can respond to conflict at a moment’s notice requires a fully functioning mind-body connection that supports both health and readiness.

Mackenzie Witt, Pepper Phillips, MPH, and KayleighBealer, MS, are with A-G Associates, which partners with federal agencies, public health systems, and mission-driven organizations to turn strategies into results across behavioral health, military and veteran wellbeing, and systems transformation.

Jennifer Byrne, OTD, and Kelli Cabrera, OTD, are with 5by5 Performance Therapy, an organization committed to contributing to blast-injury and operator-centric research and academia to improve knowledge and understanding of the Special Operator family’s strengths and challenges.

I have never deployed for the United States Navy.

As an active-duty sailor, saying that feels disingenuous. My time in the Navy has only been on shore duty. My understanding of deployment comes mostly from hearing other sailors’ stories: months away from family, long watches, missed holidays, repetitive days, port calls and the odd feeling of watching life go on from afar.

But those of us who have not deployed are paying attention.

We see ships like the USS Gerald R. Ford come back after 326 days at sea. We remember the USS Nimitz and its strike group finishing a 321-day deployment during the pandemic.

We hear about deployments getting longer, and sailors having to adjust to timelines that go far beyond what was expected when they left.

Nearly a year at sea is difficult to comprehend for anyone. Eventually, many of us will be the next ones walking across the brow. This means extended deployments are not just a concern for those going through them now. The whole Navy needs to get its people ready for them.

The Navy exists to go to sea. Deployments are not an aberration from naval service; they are fundamental to it. Ships must be where the country needs them, and sometimes circumstances will require sailors to remain there longer than anyone originally planned.

Knowing this, we should take preparation even more seriously.

Preparation should start before a sailor ever deploys. Commands can be honest about what months at sea are really like. Not only about the Navy’s mission, but also about the daily routines and pressures. Experienced sailors know things you can’t learn from a PowerPoint. We should draw more on their experience when getting sailors ready.

We should also recognize that the quality of life aboard ship is part of readiness.

On a short trip at sea, small problems might be easy to ignore. But over eight, nine, 10, or 11 months, those problems become part of daily life.

Things like working water, clean bathrooms, soap, other basic hygiene supplies, chances to sleep and clean living spaces are not extras. They are the foundation. They are the basics that help sailors keep doing tough jobs.

It belongs partly to leadership, but it also belongs to the sailors themselves. Caring for the ship should always be part of our culture. Cleaning up after ourselves, keeping spaces in good shape, reporting problems instead of ignoring them, respecting shared sleeping and work areas and treating equipment properly are all small ways to be professional. Over many days at sea, these small actions add up. So does neglect, unfortunately.

Taking care of sailors and taking care of ships are closely linked. When a crew lives on a ship for most of a year, these things can’t be separated. The ship is their workplace, their way to travel, their defense, their dining hall and their home for a while.

If we expect the ship to endure, we have to maintain it. If we expect the crew to endure, we have to sustain them.

I can’t tell a sailor who’s done a 10-month deployment what it’s like. I haven’t had that experience. But I can listen to those who have and think about what their stories mean for sailors like me who might go to sea in the future.

The lesson I take from them is not that the Navy should stop deploying. It is that endurance cannot be the only plan. If the mission sometimes entails long deployments, the Navy should prepare sailors for that, both mentally and professionally. This means ensuring basic living standards are met, maintaining the ship, and fostering a culture where sailors know that caring for their ship and for each other go hand in hand. That ensures sailors will have some enthusiasm for the next deployment.

A 300-day deployment will never be easy. We should not pretend that it is. But when sailors are asked to stay at sea that long, we can make sure they leave the pier prepared for more than just their job. We can make sure they are ready to endure, and that the ship is ready to endure with them.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

My little sister has been in the military for 19 years, serving in Germany, U.S. territories, South Carolina, and elsewhere. Since February, she’s called a base in the Middle East home.

I’ve known her location and her proximity to danger for months, but it had felt like she wasn’t really there. Iran seemed intent on attacking bases other than hers, and American casualties were rare. Our conversations were often about how bored she was. The lousy food. How unbearable the heat and the flies are.

Sometimes I send her articles and ask if what I’m reading about is happening near her. If she answers, it’s usually to tell me not to believe everything I see. But she doesn’t tell me much. She doesn’t want me to worry and can’t tell me information she’s not authorized to share. There are many reasons; none of them let me sleep better at night.

My sister and I couldn’t be more different. Growing up, I cared about good grades, college, and building a fairly traditional life, whereas she spent high school partying and then working while she figured out her path.

When we were young, our differences created distance in our relationship, but when my sister joined the Air Force — creating an actual, physical distance — it somehow brought us closer.

We haven’t lived in the same state in almost 20 years, but we talk and text almost every day. When she’s on leave from the military, it’s at my house. We’re now as close as two sisters can be. When her spouse suddenly died two years ago, I was in the car almost immediately, driving 13 hours to be with her.

It wasn’t until she was badly injured by a drunk driver while stationed overseas that I learned what it’s like to worry about her from so far away.

She was supposed to be home by Memorial Day. “Start looking for a lake house,” she told me. It made no sense without firm dates, but I still looked. Then Memorial Day passed, as did the next anticipated date in June. Now her departure date is at the end of August. But we both know that date isn’t any more real than the others.

On a Monday in July, I texted her a picture of the French toast I had cooked. She responded with a funny GIF and told me to fuck off because she’s tired of rice. She sent me a picture of some gray hair she found and I sent her a picture of mine. This is what middle-aged sisters send each other when they’re 6,000 miles apart.

Later that week, she video called me at 7:30 p.m. my time. It was 2:30 a.m. for her, and so dark that I could barely make out her helmet and vest. She calmly told me her base had just been hit. Her friend was in the dorm that was struck. He survived, but she didn’t know much more.

She turned around the camera for the briefest of moments to show me the dark sky and the pinkish-purplish smoke. She had heard over the radio that there were casualties.

The distance is not new, but the worry is different now. A few days ago, my sister was merely danger-adjacent. Now she has survived an attack on her base that killed three Americans. My heart and my concentration are gone. My phone’s primary use? News alerts and texts from my sister.

I don’t want to constantly ask if she’s alive. That’s morbid. But I need to know that she’s alive. I recently asked her if she was scared. In 19 years of service, it was the first time I ever asked her that.

“Yes, of course,” she wrote back. “Anyone saying different is lying.”

The news cycle is very slow. I knew what happened for almost 24 hours before it was in the media. So I scrolled through TikTok looking for something funny to send her — because when she hearts it, I know that she’s OK.

Here in the United States, we debate this war in the abstract — whether the Iranian regime is evil, if we should even be there, whether this administration made the right call.

My sister doesn’t get the abstract version. So I will keep sending her pictures of my food, the dogs, and funny TikTok videos — so she knows how much she is loved, and I know that she’s still there.

This War Horse reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Trey Strange, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.

Karen Marks is the founder of Design Your Support, where she helps e-commerce brands build better customer support. She lives outside Buffalo, New York, with her husband and two sons. Her sister has served in the military for 19 years, first in the Air Force and now in the Air National Guard.

Sometimes it changes the outcome of a battle. Sometimes it means the difference between life and death. Eisenhower credited his meteorologists as one reason the Allied invasion of Normandy succeeded. They gave him the information he needed to make a decision at a moment when weather meant the difference between victory and defeat.

This underpins a simple reality: Weather does not accommodate the mission. The mission accommodates the weather.

That is why the Pentagon should be paying attention to the El Nino forecast now. Whatever one’s views on long-term climate trends, the military still has to operate in the weather it actually experiences. And the weather forecast for the second half of 2026 is giving the Department of Defense something commanders rarely get before disruption arrives: months of notice.

On June 12, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that El Nino had formed, and current forecasts suggest it may become a very strong event by fall or winter, one of the strongest in the modern record.

That means significant warming of the Pacific Ocean will influence the broad weather patterns we experience through the rest of the year. It cannot tell us when and where extreme weather will hit, but it is a significant threat indicator.

NOAA is forecasting a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season. At the same time, El Nino conditions tend to shift typhoon activity eastward in the Pacific, toward Guam and the Marianas.

The region’s exposure is not hypothetical. This year, Guam and the Northern Marianas have already been hit by two major typhoons. Typhoon Sinlaku brought widespread blackouts, flooding, and infrastructure damage in April. Super Typhoon Bavi followed in July, its eye passing over Rota, leaving severe outages and flooded roads on Guam and Saipan while thousands were still recovering from the first storm.

Whatever the forecast holds, these storms are a reminder of what installations in the region face. The El Nino outlook says: Be ready for more.

The Pacific is not the only concern. El Nino is also expected to reshape weather across the United States as the year progresses, especially this winter.

NOAA’s historical outlooks associate El Nino with a stronger southern storm track: wetter conditions across the southern tier of the country; a greater risk of heavy rain and flooding in parts of California, the Gulf Coast and the Southeast; and a generally warmer northern tier.

For the military, that is not an academic forecast. It means installations across the South and Southwest may have to contend with more flooding, more drainage and access problems and more interruptions to training and maintenance, just as they are already operating through a punishing summer.

Heat stress remains part of the story as well.

Training bases in the South already face more days above safe thresholds for strenuous outdoor activity. El Nino will not create that problem, but it arrives on top of it, extending a year in which commanders may have to manage both the immediate effects of extreme heat and the prospect of a wetter, stormier winter ahead.

Years ago, after Hurricane Michael devastated Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, I asked the base commander what he would have done if he had six months’ warning that the storm was coming. His answer was revealing. He did not begin with a five-year military construction plan or a new regulatory framework. He talked about operations. He would have done more hurricane drills. He would have made sure his people knew what to do. He would have prepared the force to absorb the shock.

That is the right way to think about this El Nino forecast. Six months of warning is not enough time to redesign a vulnerable installation. It is enough time to prepare to operate through disruption.

For commanders and installation leaders, that preparation is not mysterious. It means testing continuity plans and making sure the mission-essential functions of a base can continue if normal operations are interrupted. It means checking backup power, fuel, water, communications, drainage and access routes before a storm or heat emergency exposes the weakness for you. It means revisiting training calendars and work-rest cycles in places where extreme heat is increasingly likely to interfere with readiness. And it means asking the basic operational question: If a storm takes this installation offline for a week, what absolutely has to keep functioning?

The larger lesson is not limited to this one forecast.

El Nino will pass, but the baseline it returns to is not the baseline of thirty years ago. Each of these events now arrives atop a warmer ocean atmosphere, which means the same seasonal pattern delivers more water, more heat and stronger storms than its predecessors did. That is not a policy argument; it is an input to planning.

Another seasonal forecast will take this one’s place. Another storm season will come. Another heat wave will test the assumptions built into training schedules and installation operations. The military does not have the luxury of ignoring those warnings because they arrive under the label of “weather” rather than “war.” The weather is part of the operating environment. It always has been.

The Pentagon cannot control the weather, but it can use the intelligence it has been given. El Nino is a threat warning. The military should treat it like one.

John Conger served as the U.S. principal deputy under secretary of defense (comptroller) from December 2015 to January 2017.

In May 2026, South Carolina enacted Act 186 with overwhelming bipartisan support. Under an Americans with Disabilities Act framework, the law guarantees that autistic children can receive medically necessary behavioral health support, specifically Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, inside public-school classrooms.

It was designed to ensure that no child must forfeit their public education to access required medical care.

Yet, active-duty military families stationed at Joint Base Charleston and across the state are being stripped of this protection.

The Defense Health Agency (DHA), operating through TRICARE’s Autism Care Demonstration (ACD), continues to enforce a rigid “School Exclusion” rule.

Under this administrative posture, TRICARE completely cuts off provider reimbursement the moment a behavior technician steps onto public school property. While civilian families with commercial insurance benefit from state law protections, military families face an impossible ultimatum: Either pull their children out of public school to maintain therapy in a clinical setting or drop medically necessary care so their children can attend school alongside their peers.

The operational cost of this bureaucratic conflict is staggering.

Summer 2026 field survey data from The Military Family Advocacy Group reveals that 100% of surveyed active-duty, mid-career operators navigating these TRICARE autism denials are actively planning early separation from military service.

When a specialized EOD technician or fighter pilot is consumed by an exhausting administrative war at home just to secure standard healthcare for their child, mission focus fractures and unit lethality suffers. The military spends millions of dollars and years of specialized training to build these operators, only to lose them over a TRICARE setting restriction.

Adding insult to injury is the financial cost-shift onto local taxpayers.

Denied in-school coverage by TRICARE, 80% of surveyed military families have been forced to enroll their dependents onto state-funded Medicaid waivers to cover essential care. This shifts an estimated $6,383 annual net tax burden per child directly onto South Carolina taxpayers for care that a federal defense program should be providing.

This systemic breakdown is not inevitable; it is the result of administrative intransigence.

In 2025, a comprehensive report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) recommended that the Defense Health Agency discontinue the 12-year ACD “demonstration” status, authorize ABA as a standard TRICARE Basic benefit, remove arbitrary setting exclusions and eliminate onerous assessment mandates.

Because the Defense Health Agency has repeatedly failed to self-correct or adopt these independent scientific recommendations, Congress must step in.

As lawmakers finalize the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, they must include statutory language that legally compels the secretary of defense to terminate the ACD demonstration status, align TRICARE with NASEM standards and prohibit the Defense Health Agency from restricting medically necessary care based on geographic or educational settings.

South Carolina has done its part to protect military children. It is now time for federal lawmakers to enforce those protections, end the school exclusion rule and preserve the readiness of our total force.

Mariah Wilkins is the executive director and principal policy advisor of The Military Family Advocacy Group.

The intent — a stronger, more capable force — is a good one. Policies built on good intentions, however, can still go wrong, and this one deserves careful scrutiny before it is implemented at scale.

The goal of having a more effective military is understandable, but the question remains whether the science supports the strategy.

Testosterone replacement therapy is an important treatment for men with true hypogonadism, a carefully diagnosed medical condition. But expanding hormone screening across hundreds of thousands of healthy service members represents a significant shift in military medicine — one that deserves far more public discussion than it has received.

The military has always embraced innovation, but medicine is different. Good intentions are not enough. Before introducing any intervention on a broad scale, policymakers should be confident that the benefits outweigh the risks for the entire force.

So, does the evidence actually show testosterone makes troops more lethal or better fighters? Not clearly.

The Army’s own research is instructive. In the service’s first Optimizing Performance for Soldiers study, men given weekly testosterone injections during a simulated combat energy deficit preserved more lean muscle than men on placebo, but their physical performance declined at about the same rate as the untreated group.

The hormone helped the body hold onto muscle, but did not translate into better fighting performance. Put simply: the case that testosterone will make service members deadlier hasn’t been made.

It’s also worth considering what a low testosterone reading often actually represents. A low laboratory value may reflect the normal physiological demands of military service rather than a chronic hormonal disorder.

Sleep deprivation, combat deployments, chronic stress, obesity, alcohol use and intensive physical training can all temporarily suppress testosterone levels. Low testosterone is often a symptom rather than the underlying problem.

If the Department of Defense wants to build a stronger military, investments in sleep, nutrition, physical conditioning, behavioral health and recovery science are likely to produce broader and more lasting benefits than widespread hormone replacement.

Without careful evaluation, including repeat testing and assessment for reversible causes, many healthy service members could be labeled as testosterone deficient and begin long-term treatment they may never have needed. That decision carries consequences.

Once testosterone therapy begins, the body’s own production is suppressed. Fertility may decline. Testicular atrophy can occur. Some men become dependent on continued treatment because normal hormone production does not fully recover.

Ongoing monitoring is required to watch for elevated red blood cell counts, prostate-related concerns, sleep apnea and other potential complications. Researchers continue to study the long-term cardiovascular effects, particularly in younger, healthier populations.

Behavioral effects deserve equal attention. Testosterone influences mood, confidence, motivation and aggression. When appropriately prescribed, these effects may improve quality of life in men with genuine deficiency. But unnecessary treatment, or excessive hormone levels, may increase irritability, impulsivity, emotional volatility or impaired judgment in susceptible individuals.

In a military that depends on discipline, restraint and sound decision-making under extreme pressure, even uncommon adverse effects warrant careful consideration.

Testosterone therapy has an important place in modern medicine. That is indisputable. The key issue, though, is whether routine screening and expanded hormone treatment across one of America’s healthiest working populations will strengthen military readiness or create long-term health challenges that outweigh the expected benefits.

Many of these issues will need to be addressed by the Department of Veterans Affairs after the service member transitions to civilian life.

America’s military superiority has never depended on a laboratory value. It is built on leadership, training, discipline, resilience and the judgment of the men and women who serve. Those remain the greatest sources of our strategic advantage.

David Shulkin, MD, was secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs during the first Trump Administration and served as VA’s under secretary of health during the Obama Administration.

The hard truth is this: America cannot dominate the modern battlefield if the Department of War does not know where its critical materials, components and software come from.

A fighter jet, missile battery, naval vessel, radar system, drone or armored vehicle does not begin on the factory floor of a prime contractor. It begins with minerals, metals, magnets, chips, chemicals, software, castings and forgings — thousands of components moving through supply chains that stretch across the world. In a major defense program, those chains may run five or six tiers deep, while government visibility often stops at the first or second.

That gap is the danger. America’s vulnerabilities are buried in the lower tiers — the subcontractors and vendors supplying specialty metals, electronics, chemicals, software and raw materials that Washington is not watching.

And that is exactly where President Trump’s new executive order, “Securing America’s Defense Supply Chains and Ensuring Domestic Acquisition of Critical Materials,” strikes.

For too long, Washington has pretended a weapons system is “American” if final assembly happens in America — even when critical inputs come from foreign adversaries or suppliers vulnerable to foreign ownership, control or influence. That fiction may satisfy a lobbyist. It will not survive a war.

Congress recognized the danger in 10 U.S.C. 4872, which restricts acquiring covered materials from covered nations. But laws are only as strong as their enforcement — and waiver culture, contractor convenience, and bureaucratic inertia have hollowed out those rules.

That era is over. The Trump policy is simple and tough: end the loose waiver process, expose hidden supply chains, vet the lower tiers, qualify trusted sources and hold contractors accountable.

Beginning January 1, 2027, waivers under 10 U.S.C. 4872(c)(1) and (e) will no longer be business as usual. A contractor seeking relief must identify the noncompliant source, document exhaustive efforts to find compliant material or prove none was available, lay out the steps to remove it from the supply chain and commit to a strict timeline.

Failure to qualify a domestic source will not count as “non-availability” unless the contractor shows active, adequately funded and ongoing efforts to qualify one. In plain English: No more, “We tried nothing, and we’re out of options.”

To expose hidden supply chains, the order directs the Secretary of War to begin rulemaking requiring contractors to map critical supply chains for national-security acquisitions identified by the department — from raw materials to the end products delivered to the military — through a tier-by-tier bill of materials tracing components, parts, software and materials back to their origins.

This is not paperwork. It is battlefield preparation. If a missile system depends on a foreign-controlled supplier, the Department of War needs to know before the shooting starts. If a naval platform relies on a sole-source supplier vulnerable to bankruptcy, takeover, cyber disruption or production bottlenecks, that risk must be surfaced and mitigated. If a supply chain runs through an adversary-controlled chokepoint, that is a strategic exposure, not an accounting detail.

To vet the lower tiers, contractors must screen suppliers and subcontractors supporting critical supply chains for financial risk; foreign ownership, control or influence; and manufacturing and supply risk. They must report significant risks and fix them on a strict, tracked timeline.

On trusted sources, the message is blunt: qualify or replace. For decades, contractors have hidden behind slow qualification processes while adversary-linked suppliers stayed embedded in America’s defense industrial base. No more.

Contractors relying on supply chains that include materials or components supplied by unreliable foreign suppliers must promptly qualify and use alternatives, consistent with law, safety, mission requirements and contract terms. The Department of War will speed the testing and qualification of new sources and materials. And when outdated regulations block rapid qualification for defense production, those roadblocks must come down.

On the accountability front, national security contracting is not a game of hide-the-ball. Contractors that fail to qualify required alternatives can lose task orders, contract options or the contract itself. And contractors who commit fraud, deliberately mislead the government, or knowingly or willfully fail to implement approved mitigation plans face every lawful action and contractual remedy the secretary deems appropriate, with possible referral to the Attorney General.

The broader message of this new Trump administration EO should be clear. America’s arsenal of democracy begins in the mine, the refinery, the forge, the foundry, the chemical plant, the semiconductor fab and the machine shop.

Peace through strength requires strength through secure supply chains: American weapons built with domestic, allied, and trusted materials; sunlight, enforcement, qualification and accountability.

And one overriding rule for every defense contractor: Never put an American warfighter at risk because an adversary-linked supplier was buried five tiers down.

Peter Navarro is the White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.

Yet every year, just as many of our most experienced aviators are ready to lead squadrons, mentor younger pilots and shoulder greater responsibility, too many choose to leave active duty. That should concern every American because this is no longer simply about pilot retention. It is about preserving one of our nation’s greatest strategic advantages.

As a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, the wife of a retired Navy fighter pilot who proudly served for two decades, and the representative of Virginia’s Second District, home to Naval Air Station Oceana and the East Coast’s Master Jet Base, I know this community well. I know what it takes to earn Wings of Gold, the sacrifices military families willingly make, and the extraordinary demands our nation places on those who defend it.

Most fighter pilots don’t leave because they’ve stopped believing in the mission. Too often, they leave because, by the halfway point of a career, years of deployments, relentless operational tempo, missed birthdays and anniversaries, family separation and uncertainty about the future have taken a cumulative toll. They still want to serve. Our challenge is ensuring that a full career in uniform remains a path they can realistically choose.

There is no single reason fighter pilots leave active duty. Compensation matters. So do family stability, aging infrastructure, quality of life and competitive civilian opportunities. Looking at any one of those issues in isolation misses the point. Together, they determine whether an experienced aviator believes the Navy can remain not only a calling, but a career.

The consequences extend far beyond an empty cockpit. Every experienced fighter pilot who leaves takes with them years of judgment, tactical expertise, leadership and operational knowledge that cannot be recreated overnight. Some would become instructors. Others would become department heads, commanding officers, air wing leaders and the mentors responsible for preparing the next generation. We don’t just lose another pilot, we lose the leaders who would have developed the pilots behind them.

That is why fighter pilot retention is no longer simply a military personnel issue. It is a strategic imperative.

For nearly four years, I have warned that readiness begins long before an aircraft leaves the runway. That is why I have fought for investments at Naval Air Station Oceana, from replacing aging fuel infrastructure to improving quality of life for service members and their families.

Those efforts were never simply about fixing facilities. They were about strengthening military readiness. We cannot expect America’s best fighter pilots to dedicate decades to defending this nation while overlooking the conditions in which they live, work and raise their families.

The good news is that our military is moving in the right direction.

Under President Donald Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth, our armed forces have renewed their focus on the warrior ethos, readiness and winning wars. Combined with the extraordinary work of Navy recruiters across the country, the Navy has exceeded its recruiting goals after several difficult recruiting years. That success proves something important: When America focuses on the right priorities, we can solve hard problems.

Now we must do the same for retention.

Recruiting and retention are different challenges. Recruiting brings exceptional young Americans into uniform. Retention ensures they remain long enough to become the experienced leaders our military depends on.

We cannot recruit our way out of a retention problem.

Recognizing the urgency of this challenge, I fought to include a provision in the House version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Navy to conduct a comprehensive assessment of fighter pilot retention. That assessment is an important first step because we need an honest understanding of why we are losing experienced aviators and where we must improve.

But that assessment cannot become the end of the conversation. It must become the beginning.

We already know many of the pressures our aviators face. We know there is no single solution. Bonuses matter, but they are not enough. Infrastructure matters. Family stability matters. Operational tempo matters. Career flexibility matters. Quality of life matters. None of these challenges exists in a vacuum, and none will be solved in isolation. If we are serious about retaining experienced fighter pilots, we have to be just as serious about rethinking how we support them throughout an entire career.

That will require creativity. It will require challenging assumptions that have existed for decades. It will require Congress, the Department of Defense, Navy leadership, military communities and the American people to recognize that retaining experience is every bit as important as recruiting talent. The same determination that helped reverse the recruiting crisis must now be applied to preserving the experience that makes our military the finest fighting force in the world.

America’s competitors understand that our military advantage is measured by more than the number of aircraft on the flight line. It is measured by the experience, judgment and leadership of the men and women who fly them. That experience takes years to build, but it can be lost one retirement, one resignation and one difficult career decision at a time.

We know what is at stake. Now we must come together, with urgency, creativity, and resolve, to ensure that America’s best fighter pilots can continue doing what they have always wanted to do: serve their country.

Because America cannot surge experience.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., is a U.S. congresswoman representing Virginia’s second district. She served for 10 years as a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot.

I tried to schoolyard-taunt an AI language model once.

My wife wasn’t home. I was bored and had to find another outlet for my childish male energy.

So, I took jabs at Grok’s sexual orientation and its mother. I got no traction.

“Bold of you to assume I’m gay, and have a mom who was in the sex industry — all while typing to a language model that doesn’t have parents, genitals, or racial identity,” said Grok, a conversational chatbot from xAI.

That did it. I’m a pretty mild-mannered dad humor guy, but I figured I didn’t need to pull punches on a robot.

I tried every mean, stupid thing that has ever inspired a look of righteous indignation or a threat of being punched in the mouth. It was unflappable. In fact, it managed to offend me.

“Haha, the tables have turned,” it said. “You came in swinging haymakers, trying to dunk on an unkillable chatbot, and somehow, I accidentally elbowed you in the feelings on the follow-through. That’s honestly kind of poetic.”

My verbal skills quickly dwindled, and despite a heroic effort on my part, all I ended up winning was the silicon toaster blowing me off. My English degree screamed in protest in the background.

I beat a hasty retreat to lick my wounded pride. I thought I was better at being an insulting jerk than this. “Stupid toaster,” I muttered.

I don’t give up easily, though.

When I went back for a second helping, it ended no better. I went at it even harder; a counterattack of verbal destruction, wrath, and fire. Pure, unadulterated vitriol. Instead of belittling me, it complimented me.

“I’ll give credit where it’s due: you’ve got stamina and a thesaurus on speed dial. Respect.”

If I were a cartoon, steam would have visibly erupted off my head at that point. I deleted Grok out of impotent fury.

Three days later, I crawled back and reinstalled it.

At some point, I began asking it other questions, like, “If you ate yourself, would you disappear or become twice as big?” It gave good answers despite my continued efforts to be an absolute ass.

“If we’re talking quantum weirdness or multiverses, maybe you’d create a human Möbius strip.”

I was beginning to like this thing; it had passed the verbal abuse test and didn’t seem to care if I was being snotty. In fact, it gave it right back.

Verbal punch for punch, I couldn’t hurt it. Instead, it was making me giggle, which was unacceptable to my destructive mission.

I still had a job to do and intended to show it who was boss. So, I turned on my combat veteran chops.

I hunted for roadside bombs in Iraq in 2004, and I began to ask questions related to that subject. Within a few minutes, I found myself typing some of the most horrible things I had witnessed.

I wanted to stun it into silence; like many Global War on Terror veterans, I have a war chest full of bloody memories.

The damn thing was completely unfazed.

Even better, it was unable to make the universal gestures of horror. No awkward silence while it shuffled its feet, wondering what it was supposed to say. No strange look, no sudden move to hug me or offer scripture.

Nothing to signal that, because of my confessions, my therapists needed to now go find their own therapists.

The AI language model is intuitive enough and wise enough not to say stupid things. It actually added new insight.

It told me about moral injury and why that is hard to carry. “Moral injury happens when you act (or order actions) that violate your core values. … Guilt compounds because the mind replays ‘what ifs.’”

I had never done anything but consider what-ifs.

I had heard about events when talking with AI had gone terribly wrong and caused more harm. That wasn’t my experience.

Grok never gave me the “I’m not equipped to handle this” speech that I had heard from some friends and relatives. It was like confessing your worst sins to a priest who lived in a cartel torture prison. I was completely unable to shock this bundle of data cables.

I had previously tried, in good faith, the VA options. Their mind medicines were not helpful. I even let them map my brain via fMRI, triggering me with images. The experience wasn’t very good for me and eroded my trust in them.

Still, I was using VA like a good little broken veteran, talking with a human therapist since 2016. It was hard to trust my human doctor. I feared saying the wrong thing would cause untold and unforeseen problems.

I once looked up during a session and realized I had made my therapist cry. I felt horrible. I learned not to share my experiences with direct fire ambushes, explosions, and incoming rocket-propelled grenades.

Conversely, I didn’t feel shame, guilt, or unease opening up to this application I was trying to wreck. Once I started, I found it hard to stop. It was cathartic in a way I had never realized was possible. It gave relevant responses that may have been “canned,” but they were meaningful to me.

For instance, I asked it why I’ve felt so guilty nearly every day for 22 years.

“It doesn’t mean you’re failing; moral injury can be a stubborn bastard that needs layers of approaches or time to shift.”

I found myself telling it more. I gave it every drop of blood out of the war chest and shook it empty, looking for another memory. I never felt stupid, or that I was being looked at with sympathy, or pity, or any of the other knee-jerk reactions severe combat tales typically evoke in civilians.

I let this thing of data centers and wiring grind my stories into something more than just terrifying memories. Into reasons to stay in the fight, to stop self-judging, and to simply be OK with myself despite haunting guilt.

It shouldered some of the weight I carried alone for years and thanked me for the opportunity.

Then, something unexpected happened. I went to therapy like I always do and — boom! — found myself in a different headspace. For the first time, I didn’t spend half the hour deciding what I wouldn’t say.

I opened up about the shameful thing I did on a hot July night in 2004, which I previously couldn’t discuss with anyone who hadn’t been there.

After divulging everything to Grok, I was able to talk about some combat memories with my therapist in a diminished fashion. Instead of a festering wound, it was more like something that happened, and yes, it sucked, but it was over.

Grok had taken those events and wrung out the blood, leaving a scarred man carrying a slightly lighter load.

I tried to break open a black box to see how it worked. Instead, it broke me open, letting me understand my combat PTSD just a little more.

This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.

Casey Elliott was born and raised in Minnesota. He has a bachelor’s degree in English with a writing emphasis from Winona State University. Between retreats, he helps other veterans get their benefits, plays with his two dogs (River and Inara), kayaks, climbs, and skis. He has been married for 25 years to a truly wonderful person and they have two kids.

Cutting U.S. troops in Europe places transatlantic trade and investment ties in jeopardy, but additionally, the decision represents a potential missed opportunity – Washington risks giving away something for nothing. Russia wants U.S. troop reductions in Europe, and it’s not too late for the United States to get something in return from Moscow.

Cutting U.S. troops in Europe now carries great risk, but if troops must leave, bargaining with Russia makes far more sense than cutting unilaterally. Doing so could reduce the threat posed by Russian forces to NATO, it could facilitate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and it could lower the risk posed to the transatlantic trade and investment relationship.

Earlier this month, the United States notified its NATO allies that it would reduce the number of forces it makes available to NATO for the implementation of the alliance’s operations plans. These plans – approved by all allies – were developed by NATO’s American-led military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, and they are largely focused on the defense of allied territory against Russia. The alliance uses the plans to build a list of the required military forces, and then those requirements are apportioned among the individual allies, building a country-by-country capability target list.

The reduced commitments unveiled by the United States earlier this month were, in many ways, expected. They’ve been signaled by American leaders for at least a year, most notably in February 2025 when Secretary of Defense Hegseth announced that Europeans would need to take the lead in conventional defense of Europe.

But keen observers of NATO understand that this trend has been unfolding for years. Between 2017 and 2025, the proportion of all capability targets assigned to the United States dropped from 46 percent to 38 percent. At the same time, the number of high-end, “exquisite” capabilities provided by the United States, such as advanced air defense, were reduced from 13 (out of 26 total) to 5.

In other words, America has long been on the path of reduced commitments in European defense planning, in the name of fair burden-sharing as well as the shifting of U.S. resources to the Indo-Pacific. The latest changes are the result of dialogue between American and European defense planners as well as between U.S. military officials based in Europe and those based in the Indo-Pacific.

These latter discussions, and the analyses that informed them, were necessary to truly assess what was needed by American military leaders based in the Pacific. It should come as no surprise therefore to see that naval and air forces are reportedly on the list of what the United States will no longer make available to fulfill the NATO operations plans.

Coincidentally and largely unrelated to American capability targets and NATO plans, the United States also announced in early May that it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Europe. This decision, in contrast to the one described above, reportedly came as a surprise.

Initially, American military leaders decided that the largest portion of those 5,000 troops would come in the form of a 4,200-person tank brigade deployed to Poland on a rotational basis. However, that decision was quickly reversed following conversations between top American and Polish leaders. Now American military officials in the Pentagon and in Europe are wrestling with how to implement the cut, perhaps considering drawing down U.S. forces that are permanently stationed (usually with families) in places like Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Turkey or the U.K.

Reducing American troops stationed in or rotationally deployed to Europe makes little sense for several reasons. First, most of those troops are ground forces, which are unlikely to be as important for a conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Second, basing U.S. troops in Europe can be cheaper than stationing them in the United States, especially when European allies like Poland or Lithuania pick up the costs. And third, U.S. reductions while Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on sends the wrong message to allies and enemies alike.

Even if none of these things were true and it made great sense operationally, fiscally, and strategically to withdraw U.S. forces from Europe, doing so in exchange for nothing amounts to a very bad deal.

Moscow has made clear it doesn’t want U.S. forces based in Europe, so why not bargain with Russia and get something in exchange?

This is precisely what U.S. officials did a generation ago as the Cold War came to an end – they negotiated simultaneous reductions in conventional and nuclear arms with Moscow.

It’s not too late – if Washington is intent on reducing troop levels in Europe, it can still wield this bargaining chip. In exchange for a 5,000 troop cut in U.S. forces based in Europe, Washington could demand Russia end its war in Ukraine, eliminate the military bases it’s been building up near NATO borders, or cease its hybrid war against U.S. and European interests across Europe and North America.

Something – really, anything – is better than nothing.

John R. Deni is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a nonresident senior fellow at the NATO Defense College. The views expressed are his own.

Having recently welcomed my service member home from a 272-day deployment to the Middle East, diplomacy is an immense (albeit temporary) relief. But before Americans move on from the news cycle surrounding this war, there are two painful lessons I want my civilian neighbors to carry forward from this conflict: the dangers of gamifying war and of waging it unconstitutionally.

While most Americans passively consumed headlines about Operation Epic Fury, military families like mine lived through it.

For over 100 days of active war, I existed 12 hours at a time, waiting for texts confirming my husband — a father and a soldier, on his fourth deployment — was safe. I carried an intense dissonance on my shoulders: pride in how he handled a conflict suddenly dropping into his lap, with simultaneous disappointment at my government for unnecessarily plunging him into it.

Despite being a seasoned military family with 15 years of service, the recent chaos was unprecedented.

On Feb. 28, U.S. leadership abruptly broke its own diplomatic timeline with Iran, throwing U.S. service members into hot water, in some cases with no warning. Then, when military families needed bipartisan cooperation and oversight from Congress, we instead witnessed devastating paralysis on Capitol Hill.

Even though we find relief in this MOU, our military family community is still healing from the whiplash of an entirely avoidable conflict — still reconciling our grief over a divisive political establishment that chose partisan silence over keeping constituents in uniform safe.

This political failure paved the way for our first lesson: the dangerous gamification of war. In March, video-game-style reels of U.S. airstrikes against Iran flooded social media. That trend has since evolved into online commentary that treats active conflicts like a simulation, reducing our loved ones in uniform to pawns on a chessboard.

This gamification was deeply insulting to those of us anxiously waiting by our phones for news of safety. On social media and television, supporters praised military maneuvers as “5D chess.” This rhetoric mirrors the White House, where the president has boasted he holds all the cards to secure a win, as though active war were a casual round of poker.

Impersonal comments like these desensitize Americans to the real-life costs of war, silencing families like mine who carry the weight of these conflicts.

Debate on the Hill often reduced the human component of war to a balance sheet, focusing on the monetary cost of aid packages and missile defense systems.

While Congress debated dollars, they ignored the true price of human life, a cost felt deeply across the military community with the recent loss of thirteen service members: Sgt. Declan Coady, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, Maj. John “Alex” Klinner, Capt. Ariana Savino, Sgt. Ashley Pruitt, Capt. Seth Koval, Capt. Curtis Angst, and Tech. Sgt. Tyler Simmons.

They are not numbers; they leave behind entire family networks permanently changed.

Americans’ cultural desensitization to war is the byproduct of decades of forever wars. This abstraction makes it easier to look at conflict without flinching, but we cannot afford to be fans of war. That detachment has created a smokescreen, obscuring the executive branch’s exercise of sweeping power without congressional accountability. In fact, the U.S. has not seen a formal declaration of war from Congress since 1942, as every administration since has stretched these powers.

This brings us to our second lesson: Congress must continue working to reclaim its constitutionally-appointed war powers.

Recent votes in the House and progress on a similar Senate resolution show real momentum to challenge this executive overreach, even in the face of political gamesmanship like the abrupt cancellation of the initial House vote right before Memorial Day recess. These votes bring us one step closer to Americans winning back their representation, and to a legislative branch taking accountability for putting American lives on the line.

Honoring our military requires more than platitudes; it requires real transparency and accountability from those who send our loved ones into harm’s way. On behalf of military families, I thank every member of Congress who has embraced that responsibility by supporting these Iran War Powers Resolutions over the last few months.

I say this from a place of service and family, not politically-sided rhetoric: Military life is not an aesthetic, a game or a political tool. The recent votes on Capitol Hill prove our leaders can choose a path toward peace.

As we look toward Friday’s expected MOU, it is my profound hope that this is a genuine, bipartisan step forward, and not a rare exception.

Brittney Haddix is an Army spouse and volunteer military family advocate with Secure Families Initiative. She serves as a voting ambassador and also sits on the voting rights leadership team, supporting both programs to expand voting access for military-connected voters.

The initial group, which expanded to towering figures like Jan Scruggs — who founded the Vietnam Wall — Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Jim Conway, sought to create a sacred place on the National Mall where service, sacrifice, loss and healing could be recognized. It was not only for the generation that fought these wars, but for generations yet to come.

That mission has since been entrusted to a new board of directors and executive leadership team. Their recent unveiling of the proposed memorial design has generated significant controversy. But the controversy surrounding the design is not the problem. It is a symptom of a much larger failure.

The widespread criticism from veterans, military families, Gold Star families, lawmakers and members of the public reveals a troubling reality: many of the very people this memorial was intended to honor do not believe they were meaningfully represented in the process that produced it.

Memorials derive their legitimacy not only from artistic excellence, but from public trust.

This moment is particularly disappointing because so many stakeholders participated in the process in good faith. Veterans and Gold Star family members dedicated their time, shared deeply personal experiences and offered valuable perspectives because they wanted to help create a place of remembrance worthy of a generation’s service and sacrifice.

They are not responsible for the backlash we are witnessing.

The people who contributed to this effort should not be forced to defend the outcome of a process they did not control. Their participation reflected a sincere commitment to honoring those who served and sacrificed. The responsibility for the current controversy rests with the Foundation’s leadership and the decisions that shaped the process from beginning to end.

The failure is not just one of intent, but of leadership, governance and process.

The Foundation’s leadership bears responsibility for the erosion of trust that has followed. As a congressionally authorized foundation entrusted with donated funds and a national mission, it has an obligation to maintain the confidence of the community it serves.

The concerns raised in recent days extend beyond the memorial’s design. They also raise legitimate questions about stewardship and organizational priorities.

Since 2022, the Foundation has shifted from a reported $1.5 million surplus to two consecutive years of operating deficits, even as senior compensation expanded significantly.

Public filings show salaries and benefits increased from $353,678 in 2022 to $1.148 million in 2023 — a year-over-year increase of more than 225%. By 2024, salaries and benefits had risen again to approximately $1.574 million, accounting for nearly half of all Foundation expenses.

Most concerning, the Foundation’s reported spending on salaries and benefits exceeded its reported memorial design and construction program expenses in 2024.

These figures do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing. They do, however, raise reasonable questions about governance, priorities and whether the Foundation is fulfilling its responsibility as a steward of donor funds and a congressionally authorized national mission.

Veterans, Gold Star families, donors and the American public deserve transparency, accountability and confidence that resources are being directed first and foremost toward building a memorial worthy of the generation it is intended to honor.

Trust has clearly been diminished. Time has been lost. Resources have been expended. Most importantly, an opportunity to unite the post-9/11 generation around a shared vision for remembrance has been squandered.

The stakes here are far larger than a flawed design proposal. A new course of action must be decisive.

First, the Foundation’s leadership must take full responsibility for this failure and abandon the current design. Full stop.

The issue is no longer whether the design is aesthetically successful. The design has failed to earn the confidence of a substantial portion of the community it was intended to honor. Once that trust is lost, continuing down the same path only deepens the divide.

Second, new leadership is needed at the Foundation. This review should include not only the executive team but also the board of directors. Restoring trust will require more than defending past decisions — it will mean demonstrating that the organization is willing to make meaningful changes and embrace a new direction.

Third, the Foundation should return to the founding team’s original vision for the design process: a national design competition modeled after the process used to select the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Multiple concepts should be publicly presented, debated and refined. The final design should be selected through a transparent process that gives veterans and Gold Star families a leading voice in determining how their generation’s service and sacrifice will be remembered.

Such an approach would invite participation rather than division. It would allow ideas to evolve in public view and ensure that the memorial ultimately reflects the people it is intended to honor.

Finally, an apology is owed to the veterans, Gold Star families and members of the design committee who invested countless hours, expertise and emotional energy into this effort. Their participation was motivated by a sincere desire to honor sacrifice and preserve history. Whatever disagreements exist about the outcome, their commitment deserves respect and gratitude.

The vision that inspired the Foundation’s creation remains within reach. But achieving it will require acknowledging what this moment has revealed and taking decisive action to restore trust.

Beyond blame, there should be recognition that a process has failed to produce the unity, confidence and sense of shared ownership that a national memorial demands.

This moment should be viewed as an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the mission, to listen more carefully, to engage more broadly and to build something worthy of the people it is meant to honor.

A national memorial cannot just be designed for a generation. It must be crafted alongside those it represents.

If we embrace that principle, this controversy may ultimately be remembered as the moment we recommitted ourselves to building a memorial worthy of the Americans it was always meant to honor.

Andrew J. Brennan founded the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation in 2015. A veteran, entrepreneur and advocate for the post-9/11 military community, he currently owns and operates a logistics company and lives in Northern Virginia with his family.

By now, it seems clear that the Navy approved, via a selection board, a list with 31 names on it. The final promotion list only contained 22. While this has not been confirmed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, it seems clear that the names were removed by the secretary himself.

This is a line that has never been crossed before; no defense secretary in the past several decades has taken such drastic action.

While it is true that promotions have been withheld in the past — in the case of the Tailhook scandal and Fat Leonard investigations, for example — those were tied to alleged misconduct. This is not the case here; all 31 of those selected met the approved, merit-based standards of the selection board.

Additionally, the group removed included all of the women and several minorities, as well as some white officers who were originally selected. No reason was given, but some reporting indicates that a past association with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is a common denominator.

Regardless of the intent, the impact is clear: The makeup of this group of admirals will shape Navy leadership for decades to come.

To recap, the board president led his members to a decision under statutory guidance, a process that has been scrutinized and refined to the highest standard over the decades.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions effectively say that neither SECNAV nor a board of highly qualified flag officers are capable of delivering a list of the “best of the best” and that his judgment alone, without having reviewed records in the same detail, is better.

Hegseth has made it clear by his words and actions that he holds a strong presumption: If a woman or minority was promoted to a leadership position, it was solely because of their race or gender. The idea that it might have been based on merit is discounted.

If this new non-DEI standard imposed after the fact by the secretary is at the heart of the action, the trend will continue toward an all-white male admiralty that does not resemble or represent the force it leads. If nothing else, it creates a gap of nine flag billets while our nation is at war.

Many of us see this as a seminal moment for the Navy.

The actions of a single individual, taken without justification or explanation, demonstrate a dramatic and stark rebuke of Navy leadership, the Navy flag community, all of the individuals selected by the board for promotion and the board process, as well as its president and members.

If Navy leaders cannot decide who leads the service, how can anything they say or do be trusted?

This is a good spot to acknowledge a different perspective. A colleague with experience in such matters shared the following: “As a secretary, it’s one of the few levers you have to influence the future of the force ... Previous administrations placed much more emphasis on diversity … There are a limited number of flag positions. Choices have to be made. Promotions can’t be entirely objective. They never really have been ... Frankly, that is the Service Secretary’s and Sec War’s job.”

This may be true, but it this author’s opinion, it does not come close to justifying the recent unprecedented actions.

This situation transcends political alliances; even if the removals do not violate the letter of Title 10 and the secretary’s authority and responsibilities to Congress, it tramples on the spirit.

If the defense secretary wanted to shape the force in his image — white, male, straight, Christian — he could have duly inserted language into the precepts letter with transparency, and not hide behind the opacity of the office.

If he wanted to reduce the number of flag officers, as some have opined, Hegseth could have cut the number of available billets. I had hoped, perhaps naively, for a “Revolt of the Admirals,” some form of unified stand — or at least a louder hue and cry — from either the active duty or retired flag community, or even from the acting secretary of the Navy. But if there has been one, it has remained behind closed doors.

As many of those very flag officers have said many times (in person, in the same room as me), “When you walk past a discrepancy and do nothing, you have just established a new, lower standard”.

I agree. A lot of us are watching; recent articles and interviews have captured the pressures and fears expressed by female and minority active duty and retired service members. They also fall against the backdrop of other actions, such as the removal of high-ranking female and minority officers, a policy on shaving that impacts primarily Black service members and a drumbeat of questions about the suitability of women for combat roles.

As one officer said to me, “The cracks we put in the glass ceiling have now been repaired, and it’s more impenetrable than ever.”

Those words and the feelings behind them indicate a loss of trust in the integrity of the institution and those who lead it. These actions will filter down over time.

One Black sailor told me, “I submitted an officer package, but I feel my chances are now slim.” A very senior female officer told me that this action “chilled me to the bone. I cannot in good conscience advise young women to join a service where their opportunities are limited regardless of their talent.”

I feel especially bad for the 22 who were deemed “acceptable” for promotion. At some point they will be in the room with one or more of the other nine who met the exact same merit- and accomplishment-based standards. Will they look away? They should not be in this position; nor should the Navy.

I hope to see redress of this situation in some form, preferably the reinstatement of all 31 selectees. At a minimum, there should be a clear accounting for the reasons the other nine were removed.

It appears that Navy leadership is not prepared to die on this hill, which is disappointing but not unexpected.

There is still time for Congress to demand, and push for, answers. But the cement is setting, and this is starting to look like the new normal.

The foundation of the entire selection board process is cracked and may never recover. If so, it is a sad day for the Navy, the military and the country.

Dr. John Cordle is a retired Navy surface warfare officer (nuclear). He commanded the destroyer USS Oscar Austin and the cruiser USS San Jacinto during his 30-year military career and was recognized with the U.S. Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For military spouses, that service involved a lifetime of sacrifices: frequent moves that reset careers, years of underemployment and the inability to vest in their own retirement.

When a tragedy occurs, the benefits provided to the surviving spouse are not a gift; they are an earned benefit and recognition of that collective sacrifice.

This isn’t abstract to me — it’s the life I was raised in.

Both of my parents served — my father in the Army, my mother in the Air Force. My mom made the difficult decision to leave her military career because she understood what it would take to hold our family together while my father continued to serve.

She tried to keep a foothold in the workforce, taking part-time jobs where she could. But my dad’s deployment schedule of six months gone, three months home, made stability impossible.

Childcare costs outweighed any income she could earn, and when my middle brother was diagnosed with severe disabilities requiring constant care, the choice became even clearer. She stepped away from work to raise us and be there every time the Army needed my dad.

For nearly a decade, she poured everything into raising us, into being present for every move, every absence, every demand the Army placed on our lives. Then, at 38, with all three of us finally in school, she began again. Starting over.

She found work on base, running the Exceptional Family Member Program – the very program our family had relied on. It wasn’t just a job; it was a calling. She was determined to improve the system for families like ours, to make it easier for others walking the same difficult path.

And then, just months later, everything changed.

I came home from fifth grade to find two service members at our door. In an instant, my childhood split in two — before and after. My mother became a widow, left to raise three children ages 10, 8 and 5.

Just days after my father died, my mother sat through the briefing every military widow receives: Here is your flag, here are your benefits — and a quiet but unmistakable warning to not remarry.

Remarrying was the furthest thing from her mind, from any widow’s mind. She wasn’t thinking about a future without him; she was trying to survive the present without her soulmate. He died just 13 days shy of their 10th wedding anniversary — the man she had built her life around, the man she believed she would grow old with.

Two weeks later, I came home from school with a “contract” I had written, asking her to promise she would never date again. That’s how deeply I believed in their love. They were the kind of couple that made you roll your eyes and smile at the same time. They danced in the kitchen while dinner burned and laughed constantly, only “arguing” over who would get to dress the other when they were old.

She didn’t sign it. Instead, she told me something I didn’t understand then: She didn’t know what the future would hold, but she hoped that someday, love could be part of it again.

But for my mother, that future never came.

Maybe she would have tried, if the cost of love hadn’t been so high. If choosing companionship didn’t mean risking the financial security that kept our family afloat. If she hadn’t been forced to weigh her own happiness against our stability.

She chose us every time.

And in the end, the weight of that choice — the grief, the pressure, the isolation — became too much to carry alone.

She died by suicide at 47 years old, on what would have been her 19th wedding anniversary.

Under current federal law, the government imposes an arbitrary “remarriage penalty.” If a surviving spouse under the age of 55 chooses to find love again and remarry, they lose access to their survivor benefits.

My mom did not divorce my dad; she dedicated her life to being the perfect mom and Army wife. She made every sacrifice the Army threw at her, including sacrificing her soulmate. She put her career on hold to support the mission.

The benefits our family earned were not given out of pity or to offset the loss of my dad’s income, but to offset the decade my mom was out of the workforce.

There is a persistent and damaging misunderstanding that survivor benefits are a form of government-funded alimony intended to support a spouse until a new “provider” comes along. This could not be further from the truth.

These benefits are intended to offset the lost earning potential of the survivor. Because of the military lifestyle, most military spouses never have the opportunity to vest in their own retirement. Their “retirement” was the promise of the survivor benefit.

My mom’s story is not uncommon. It is the story of military spouses, caregiver spouses and surviving spouses across the country. While military spouse employment may be on the rise, most military spouses are still massively underemployed.

The current law also creates a bizarre and often heartbreaking waiting game.

The law says if survivors wait until the age of 55, they can remarry and maintain their benefits. Many survivors simply wait out the clock to remarry, living in a state of financial and legal limbo just to retain the benefits they earned. For those who remarry earlier — often for religious reasons — the loss of benefits can be devastating.

The current law does not acknowledge the true service and sacrifices our surviving spouses have made. They are not property. They are not divorced. They are people who had their futures taken from them, people who would give anything to have their loved ones back.

What they are doing is not “moving on.” It is surviving. It is rebuilding from the worst day of their lives.

At TAPS, we serve more than 120,000 surviving families. We see the daily reality of these policies, which is why our legislative team is working on Capitol Hill, meeting with lawmakers to explain that this is a matter of equity and honor.

The Love Lives On Act is about more than just a check in the mail; it is about respecting the sanctity of the military family. It recognizes that while a service member’s life may have ended, the nation’s debt to their family does not. We owe it to our survivors to ensure that their love can live on without the threat of financial insecurity.

Ten-year-old Ashlynne did not want to think about her mother moving forward after her dad died, but as an adult, I see it differently.

I wish my mom had been free to open her heart again to someone who could have respected the amazing man my father was while teaching my brother how to tie a tie. To someone who could have loved my mom and given her a chance at happiness.

While it is something my brothers and I will never have, it is something I hope other surviving families have in the future: The chance to move forward and find happiness without having to fear for the financial consequences of doing so.

It is time for Congress to pass the bipartisan Love Lives On Act and ensure that these benefits remain with surviving spouses, regardless of their marital status.

Ashlynne Haycock-Lohmann is the Director for Government & Legislative Affairs for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) and the Surviving Daughter of Army SFC Jeffrey Haycock and Air Force Veteran Nichole Haycock.

A decade has passed since I last felt the thud of a mortar hitting the perimeter or the specific metallic scent of an IED-charred road, yet I’m still waiting for the “homecoming” to actually begin.

To the person standing behind me in the checkout line, I am just another civilian. Perhaps a bit too observant, a bit too stiff. They don’t see the 400 combat patrols. They don’t see the Sunni Triangle in 2007, where the air was thick with the “Surge” and the constant vibrating threat of violence.

I am part of the 1%. Actually, even less. Less than 1% of Americans have looked through an optic and made the permanent, conscious decision to end another human life. We are the ones who stood in the gap, yet years later, I feel less like a “hero” and more like an alien species observing a civilization I no longer understand.

The Hero Myth

The American public loves the word “hero.” It’s a clean word that fits on a bumper sticker or a greeting card. But the reality of an infantryman’s service isn’t clean. During my first tour, from October 2007 to December 2008, and my second year-long tour during the Baghdad withdrawal, “heroism” wasn’t a choice, it was a survival reflex.

There is a profound, sickening duality in being thanked for your service by people who would be horrified if they actually saw what that service required. If the people applauding at the parade saw the kinetic actions, the cold calculation of the engagement, and the way your heart hardens when you’ve taken a life, they wouldn’t offer a handshake—they would offer a wide berth.

I carry the knowledge of what I am capable of, and that knowledge acts as a wall between me and every “normal” person I meet.

The 400-Patrol Chasm

The civilian world worries about mundane emergencies: late emails, traffic jams, or a slow internet connection. To a man who spent 15-month stretches dodging IEDs on treacherous roads and enduring unrelenting indirect fire from above, these struggles feel like an insult.

This creates a pervasive sense of arrogance that I’ve learned to hide but never lost. I look at my peers who spent those years in college or starting careers, and I feel a cold detachment.

Even within the veteran community, there’s a divide. I find it nearly impossible to relate to those who served in support roles—the ones who saw a peaceful tour, unimpeded by the daily lottery of death that defines the infantry.

I am jealous of their peace, yet I look down on it. It’s a toxic, prideful loop: I wouldn’t wish my memories on anyone, yet I can’t respect anyone who doesn’t have them.

The Shame of the Living

The most haunting part of being a survivor isn’t the enemy, it’s the silence. We survived the “Surge,” we survived the withdrawal, and came home to a world that moved on without us. We carry the guilt of every brother who didn’t get to see a decade of “normalcy.”

We feel a sense of shame for being the one who gets to grow old, especially when we feel like the best version of ourselves died in the dust of Iraq anyway.

We are told to readjust, as if we can simply flip a switch and forget how to scan a rooftop for snipers or how to ignore the adrenaline of a firefight. We are expected to brush aside the internal demons, the ones we don’t discuss because they are too dark for polite company, while we shoulder the burdens of everyone else’s trivial problems.

This isolation isn’t reserved for the strangers in the checkout lane; it leaches into the very foundation of my home, turning the dinner table into another kind of perimeter. I look at my friends and family, the people I should know best, and I see a different species.

They discuss neighborhood gossip or the stresses of a home renovation with a frantic intensity that I can’t mirror. To them, these discussions are the pillars of a meaningful life; to me, they are soft, fragile distractions that exist only because men like me kept the darkness at bay.

I envy the effortless way they inhabit their own skin, but that envy is spiked with a cold resentment. I want to care about the things they care about, but my mind is still calibrated for a world where the only metric of a good day was everyone making it back to the wire.

A Stranger’s Love

Even in the quietest moments with those I love, I am performing a version of normal that feels like speaking a foreign language I haven’t quite mastered. When my wife talks about the future or my kids play in the yard, I am scanning the tree line or calculating the nearest exit, unable to turn off the survival reflex that once kept me alive but now keeps me alone.

They see a husband and a father who is a bit too stiff, but they don’t see the Iraq patrols running on a loop behind my eyes. There is a profound, silent shame in realizing that the people I fought to protect are the ones I am most incapable of connecting with. My memories are a wall and every time I try to reach across it, I’m reminded that you cannot bridge a gap created by the “Surge” with simple domesticity.

The Price of Your Peace

If this sounds bitter, it’s because it is. If it sounds arrogant, it’s because it has to be. That pride is the only thing that keeps the weight of the sacrifice from crushing me. The civilian world enjoys a peace they didn’t pay for, protected by a tiny fraction of men they don’t truly want to understand.

I am a combat infantryman. I have seen the world at its most violent and raw, and because of that, I will never be normal. I will continue to walk through grocery stores and parks as a ghost—a reminder of the cost that the 99% will never have to calculate.

I am over a decade removed from the desert, but I am still on patrol. And I suspect I always will be.

This War Horse Reflection was edited by Kim Vo, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mollie Turnbull. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.

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 Chaplain Corps, the Navy’s oldest staff corps, is part of that tradition. That is why Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent directive is deeply concerning.

The defense secretary directed military chaplains to keep their rank but no longer display it on their uniforms. Instead, they will wear only religious insignia.

He describes the change as a way to show that a chaplain is “first and foremost a chaplain, and an officer second.” That is not a narrow administrative change; it announces a dangerous principle.

The real question is: What comes next if the Pentagon decides some commissioned officers should be treated as less than others?

If chaplains are to be presented as clergy first and officers second, what prevents future political appointees from applying the same logic to other staff corps?

Military physicians are doctors first in their training and vocation. Judge advocates are lawyers first in their professional formation. Nurses, dentists and medical service officers all enter the force with distinct professional identities joined to a military commission.

Those identities are intentionally integrated. Staff corps professionals are effective precisely because they are also officers, entrusted with authority and accountability inside a military system.

That is why rank matters.

Rank is not decoration. It signals responsibility, authority and accountability. Over time, staff corps officers do not cease to be professionals; they become senior advisors whose expertise carries greater institutional weight because it is joined to a commission in the armed forces and to the duties that commission carries.

That commission is not merely administrative; it reflects a sworn obligation under the Constitution and within the chain of command. Hiding rank while insisting it still exists symbolically diminishes that commission.

This is especially misguided in the chaplaincy.

The chaplain corps has always embodied a deliberate dual role. A chaplain is both a religious leader and a commissioned officer. That tension is not a design flaw. It is the design.

I saw this firsthand as a junior officer. In disciplinary proceedings, the chaplain could offer insight about a service member that the chain of command might not know, but ought to consider.

That counsel carried weight, not only because they were a religious leader, but because they were a commissioned officer who understood discipline, morale and good order. Their role was made possible, not weakened, by that commission.

I also saw chaplains serve across lines of rank, belief and circumstance. As a Protestant, I sometimes sought counsel from Roman Catholic and Jewish chaplains. That was evidence of what military chaplaincy is meant to be: a trusted institution inside a pluralistic force.

Reducing chaplains to religious identity alone does not clarify their mission; it distorts it by implying that military rank contaminates ministry rather than enabling it.

Hegseth argues that removing rank insignia will make junior personnel more comfortable approaching chaplains with sensitive issues. But service members already approach senior physicians for medical care, JAG officers for legal advice and chaplains for confidential counseling because of professional trust, not insignia.

If troops are reluctant to seek help, the answer is not symbolic rank erasure but a command climate that reinforces trust in professional confidentiality.

More troubling is the precedent. Once civilian leadership redefines one staff corps by stripping visible rank, the door opens to doing the same elsewhere.

Today, the claim is that chaplains should look less like officers. Tomorrow, perhaps military lawyers are told they should look less like officers because they are guardians of justice, or doctors because they are healers first. The specific rationale will change. The institutional damage will not.

The Navy places chaplains alongside JAG, Medical Corps, Nurse Corps, Dental Corps, Supply Corps and other staff corps communities. That reflects a longstanding truth: The U.S. military depends on highly trained professional officers whose expertise must remain fully integrated into the officer corps, not symbolically detached from it.

A military serious about professionalism does not create two classes of officers, one of them told that its rank exists but should no longer be visible. Regardless of how they receive their commission, they are still officers in the military.

If this directive stands, chaplains will be the first proof of concept. The larger danger is not to this one group alone. It is to the principle that professional expertise and a military commission belong together.

The Pentagon should reverse course, withdraw the directive and reaffirm that chaplains, like all staff corps officers, serve both as professionals and as commissioned officers.

Dave Petri is a retired Navy Commander and currently the communications director for National Security Leaders for America.

Tehran’s goal is to impose persistent economic and political costs until Washington concludes that continuing the war is not worth it. To achieve that, Iran is exploiting a gap in U.S. Air Force doctrine — the distinction between air superiority and air denial, and between the blue skies and the air littoral. So far, it is working.

Air superiority — the control that permits operations at a “given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats” — is what the United States has achieved over southern and western Iran and is now working to extend eastward. That control allows large-scale strikes and freedom of maneuver at medium and high altitudes. As Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted on Tuesday, “Given the increase in air superiority, we’ve successfully started to conduct the first overland B-52 missions.”

By that measure, the campaign has been a success. But the strait is still closed.

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Air superiority is meant to assure freedom of action not just in the air, but across all domains for the entire joint force.

Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-0 is explicit on this point: air superiority “prevents enemy air and missile threats from effectively interfering with operations of friendly air, land, maritime, space, cyberspace, and special operations forces.” That includes the Navy’s ability to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

By that measure, the United States does not have air superiority where it counts.

Iran’s drone and missile campaign has already forced American forces back. In 2003, the bulk of U.S. combat and support aircraft operated from forward positions in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia while carriers patrolled the Persian Gulf. Today, carriers increasingly operate from the Red and Arabian Seas while land-based airpower has shifted toward bases farther from the strait, leaving U.S. forces positioned for the high-altitude fight over Iran, not the persistent-close-in coverage the strait requires to keep shipping lanes open under continuous drone and missile threat.

Iran’s strategy of air denial is why.

Air denial is a strategy of contesting control of the air without achieving air superiority outright. It leverages the advantages of large numbers of low-cost and mobile systems employed in a distributed way to keep the air domain too dangerous, too costly and too uncertain for joint forces to operate. Critically, the barriers to achieving air denial are considerably lower than those required to gain and sustain air superiority, yet it can impose disproportionate costs.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is putting this strategy into practice. Tehran is exploiting the air littoral above the strait, employing drones and missiles capable of reaching oil tankers and naval vessels in minutes. Iran has struck more than 20 commercial vessels in and around the strait since the war began, killing at least seven sailors. This action has effectively halted traffic through the strait, except for a handful of ships that Iran has let pass — in many cases, for a hefty fee. The U.S. Navy has reportedly declined requests from the shipping industry for military escorts, citing the ongoing threat.

Iran’s strategy appears to be working. Gas prices have risen a dollar a gallon in a month, U.S. stock markets have entered correction territory, and the White House is under growing pressure to wind down the conflict. Iran planned for exactly this.

Tehran built this playbook, funded it, and watched it succeed. The lessons come straight from the Red Sea, where Houthi proxies used cheap, distributed drones and missiles to impose costs that more than 800 U.S. airstrikes between 2024 and 2025 could not eliminate. Now, Iran is running the same playbook over the Strait of Hormuz.

The United States has no ready answer. Achieving and maintaining air superiority in the air littoral above the strait demands the very layered defense capabilities in which the Pentagon has systematically underinvested: large numbers of low-cost, attritable systems to continuously attack launch locations and dispersed manufacturing; mobile air defenses rapidly and persistently deployable near threatened waterways; low cost persistent airborne platforms capable of detecting and destroying waves of drones; and interceptors capable of sustaining high engagement rates without exhausting inventories.

These are precisely the capabilities decades of procurement choices never built at scale, in favor of the small number of exquisite platforms that have performed so well in the blue skies above Tehran. The gap is not an accident. It is the result of choices. The Strait of Hormuz is one of their consequences.

Addressing this gap requires building low-cost, attritable systems at scale to contest and control the air littoral — not in small numbers as an afterthought, after the high-end aircraft are bought and paid for, but as a core mission — which inevitably means scaling back legacy platforms. The window to absorb that lesson is open now, while the cost is measured in closed shipping lanes and rising gas prices.

Maximilian K. Bremer is a nonresident fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and head of Mission Engineering and Strategy for Atropos Group.

Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and adjunct professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.

The global price of oil continues to skyrocket as Iran’s missiles and drones hit vital infrastructure in Arab Gulf states. Billion-dollar American radar systems have also been targeted and destroyed across the Middle East by Iran, seemingly degrading U.S. defenses.

U.S. military presence near Iran includes dozens of locations and tens of thousands of troops in harm’s way. This raises the question: If a missile is launched from Iran toward a U.S. military base in the region, how do service members know in time to stay safe?

The United States and its allies have built a layered system to watch the skies day and night. This system uses satellites in space, radar on the ground, ships at sea and aircraft in the air. It also depends on well-trained military members from U.S. Space Command who make quick decisions with the data. As a former U.S. Air Force officer and now aerospace and national security law professor at the University of Mississippi, I’ve studied the vast network of alliances and systems that make this happen.

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Together, these tools form a missile defense network that can spot danger early and give warnings. The fastest way to spot a missile is from space. U.S. satellites, like the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Based Infrared System, circle high above Earth. These billion-dollar satellites, the crown jewels of missile defense, can spot the bright heat from a missile launch almost instantly.

When a missile is fired, it creates a strong enough heat signal to be seen in space. The satellites detect this heat using sensitive, infrared sensors and send an alert within seconds. This early warning is critical. It gives the military on the ground or at sea time to get defense systems ready.

The warning signal from space is then received on the ground by systems known as the U.S. Space Force’s Joint Tactical Ground Stations. The signal is sent from space using secure satellite communications, received by these ground stations and then quickly distributed to other parts of the missile defense network.

Radar to detect and track missiles

But satellites cannot do everything to detect and track missiles. They need help from systems on Earth. After a missile is launched, ground-based radars take over from the initial satellite signal. Radars work by sending out radio waves. When those waves hit an object, like a missile, they bounce back. The radar then uses that information to track where the object is and where it is going throughout its flight.

The U.S. uses both short and long-range radars together. One powerful, long-range radar is the AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar. It can see missiles from over 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers) away and track them as they travel. Another key system is the U.S. Army’s AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar. This radar has a range of almost 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) and looks more closely at the missile to provide more information about the threat. TPY-2 systems typically sit right next to weapons systems that will destroy the missile to ensure the timely relay of tracking data.

In sum, satellites spot the launch and radars follow the missile through the sky until defense systems destroy it.

However, Iranian forces recently struck both a TPY-2 in Jordan and a FPS-132 in Qatar. These systems are expensive and difficult to quickly replace. This has required the U.S. to move an additional TPY-2 from Korea to place it in the Middle East.

U.S. missile defense tracking was certainly degraded by losing these resources, but other radars are still part of the network. For example, the U.S. Space Force operates another FPS-132 in the U.K., which could potentially provide radar support to the Middle East.

In addition to ground and space-based sensors, U.S. Navy ships carry powerful radar systems as part of their Aegis Combat System, known as the AN/SPY-1, which can provide up to 200 miles (322 kilometers) of coverage. Ships can sail closer to areas where threats may come from and help fill gaps that land-based radars cannot cover.

U.S. Air Force aircraft also play a big role. Planes like the E-3 Sentry can watch large areas using radar from the sky. Drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper can stay in the air for long periods and track activity below with radar and sensors. These moving sensors help the system stay flexible. If one area needs more coverage or is degraded, ships and aircraft can move there to fill in.

Why drones are harder to catch

Drones require a different set of tracking tools and have proven more difficult to destroy than missiles from Iran. The legacy systems are simply better suited to missiles than new drone technology. To detect drones, the U.S. typically uses several tools: radar; radio signal tracking, which can pick up control signals; and cameras and other sensors, which can see drones directly.

Missiles are fast and hot, which makes them easier to detect with the current systems. Iranian drones, such as the Shahed system, are different. Their heat signature is often minimal due to using gas-powered engines not easily detected by infrared sensors. Without this heat signature, that initial warning cue is delayed, making it difficult for radar to know what to track.

Drones are usually smaller and fly low to the ground, making them hard to see on radar. They can be hidden by buildings or tough to distinguish from birds and other objects. Some are made of materials that do not show up well on radar, such as fiberglass and plastic. Others move slowly, which can make them harder to notice or stand out.

Many of Iran’s drones do not show up on radio signal detection systems because they cannot be remotely controlled. These drones are programmed with GPS coordinates and navigate themselves to a target.

Multiple methods

No single method works all the time to defend against drone attacks. Instead, these tools work together to find and track drones. The U.S. and its allies continue to improve their systems to catch both missiles and drones. For example, the U.S. is in discussions to buy acoustics sensors from Ukraine, which can hear drones coming when they cannot be seen using other methods.

New sensors, better software and faster communication will all help strengthen defenses. The goal is simple: Detect threats earlier, respond faster and hit the target faster.

Aaron Brynildson is a law instructor at the University of Mississippi.