The enduring conflicts in Ukraine, the Levant and Red Sea underscore the tumultuous nature of the global security environment. The United States’ adversaries and challengers are growing increasingly aligned in their efforts to undermine the international order and disrupt global stability. A coercive and aggressive Chinese Communist Party is militarizing at a wartime pace. The U.S. and our European allies face depleted arsenals while tensions in the Middle East continue to boil, increasing concerns that these challenges will require the joint force to make trade-offs between competing defense priorities. Herein lies the central defense challenge of today: ensuring the joint force has the requisite capabilities and capacity — the depth of magazine — to support U.S. allies and partners and sustain a protracted campaign of its own.

Depth matters

The depth of our nation’s magazine extends beyond ammunition storage and weapons. It encompasses our munitions, fuel and food stockpiles, and prepositioned inventories. It also includes the resiliency of our supply chains and the strength and depth of our industrial capacity. Additionally, it requires a deep bench of reserve and rotational forces that can relieve, reinforce and enable rapid reconstitution. Most importantly, it must effectively meet the needs of a short- and long-term time horizon.

While the joint force is postured to meet defense requirements now, the uncertainty of the future operating environment and the unpredictability of our adversaries heighten the risks associated with a shallow magazine. For example, an insufficient supply of aircraft, ammunition or aviators could limit our strike warfare operational tempo in the Indo-Pacific.

In the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian leadership failed to plan for the resources required to sustain their formations beyond the opening stages while limited inventories likely constrained the scope of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. While Ukraine registered an operational demand for 250,000 artillery rounds per month in the lead-up, they were limited to approximately 90,000 artillery rounds per month at the height of the counteroffensive.

Ukraine has recognized it cannot solely rely on allies and partners and is working to expand the capacity of its industrial base. These efforts are proving fruitful, particularly in drone production. The number of domestic drone manufacturers has grown from seven to over 300 within the last eighteen months to keep pace with the Ukrainian armed forces’ consumption of over 10,000 unmanned platforms per month. However, production capacity takes time.

The clear lesson here is that limited capacity could force the U.S. to limit the scope of its military objectives or operational force employment if it is determined that a long-duration, high-tempo campaign is unsustainable. Most importantly, it could undermine the credibility of U.S. deterrence and embolden our adversaries.

The short, sharp illusion

Cathal J. Nolan systematically examines the Second Punic War, the Hundred Years’ War, the War of Spanish Succession, the Napoleonic Wars and the world wars in his 2017 book, “The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost.” He underscores that great power warfare is a society-encompassing affair that uses the full extent of a nation’s industrial capacity and political will. Major wars are most often won by the state with greater long-term capability and capacity.

The myth of the short, sharp conflict does not reflect the historical record, nor does it serve as a prudent planning factor for future conflict. Regardless of theater, joint and coalition forces need a depth of magazine that can last years — not months. China is increasing its weapons inventory five to six times faster than the United States while building multilayered antiaccess, area-denial defenses. Any conflict with China would produce an insatiable appetite for resources.

Not easy work

During the recent NATO summit in Washington, D.C., NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted the alliance has failed to keep up with the demands of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Whether hampered by policy, politics or production capacity, NATO is not matching Russia’s renewed wartime production. Building and maintaining a depth of magazine requires proactive decision-making.

Closer coordination and teaming between government, defense and commercial industry will be required to meaningfully accelerate and scale critical capabilities in areas where industry is clearly in the lead. The U.S. should pursue procurement solutions and block buys of exquisite weapons, platforms and munitions while leveraging allies’ and partners’ ability to manufacture high quantities of defense commodities to focus on the capabilities that will be needed in a future high-end, high-intensity conflict. Ultimately, depth of magazine, along with a strategy to win beyond the opening stages of a conflict, should be carefully planned for and initiated well prior to the onset of conflict. That time is now.

Mars must be fed

History tells us that great power conflict comes with a high likelihood of protraction. If the U.S. is to maintain a credible deterrent and prevent the outbreak of a protracted war, the U.S. and its allies and partners must have deep enough magazines to sustain military operations in a long, high-intensity conflict. An insufficient inventory risks limiting the operational tempo and scope of military objectives or undermining our ability to sustain a protracted conflict. Ultimately, the depth of our magazine will determine the credibility of U.S. deterrence and our ability to protect national security.

Gen. Christopher Mahoney is the assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

In contemporary military operations, UAS are being tightly integrated into infantry tactics, used in new and creative ways for reconnaissance, leveraged for forward operating base defense, relied on to provide critical intelligence and deployed for data collection. Because UAS can autonomously operate in hazardous environments and undertake high-risk missions, they have revolutionized warfare by significantly enhancing operational safety and expanding tactical options for ground forces.

In response to China’s historical technological dominance in the UAS market and amid the technology’s rapid evolution, Congress has taken steps to foster technology development while addressing new potential dangers. Legislative measures have been introduced to support the development of domestic UAS capabilities.

H.R. 2864, the C-CCP Drone Act, would mandate the inclusion of equipment produced by Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited (DJI Technologies), the world’s largest drone manufacturer, on the Federal Communications Commission’s list of equipment that poses a risk to U.S. national security.

The threat of Chinese advancements

DJI and Autel, both Chinese companies, control more than 90% of the global drone market. In the mid to late 2000s, subsidized pricing allowed DJI to penetrate global markets rapidly, including within the U.S. and NATO countries, to the detriment of domestic manufacturers.

The ubiquity and cost advantages of Chinese drones have disrupted foreign markets while introducing security vulnerabilities in sensitive areas such as critical infrastructure, military bases and urban surveillance. Reports have surfaced of data from Chinese-made drones being transmitted back to servers in China, raising concerns about espionage and data security. China’s collaboration with Russia to enhance Russian FPV drone production capabilities could also pose a further challenge to the U.S. and NATO.

US countermeasures and investment

In this environment, ensuring the West’s UAS superiority on the battlefield will depend on the success of efforts to bolster domestic capabilities, increase investments in R&D and develop advanced technologies that can compete with and surpass those produced by China.

The Department of Defense has initiated multiple programs to bolster U.S.-based UAS manufacturers and support the development of a secure and reliable supply chain for critical components.

Meanwhile, private companies like Anduril, Shield AI and Edge Autonomy are leading the charge with new UAS solutions tailored for defense applications. These innovators are not only developing cutting-edge technology but also ensuring their products are free from foreign influence and data security dangers by manufacturing critical components such as cameras, gimbals, flight controllers, and radios onshore.

Private equity can further these efforts by strategically investing in innovative companies and technologies, driving the growth of domestic UAS innovation. Moreover, by supporting these companies’ efforts to develop onshore manufacturing processes and establish secure supply chains, private equity investment can help reduce dependence on foreign sources and enhance national security.

It is therefore paramount to invest in developing and deploying critical technologies and cyber tools to the warfighter that will be necessary to accelerate domestic UAS development and deployment.

Doctrine, training and safety standards

While much is happening on the production front, we also need to consider the impact of UAS on military operations, which will require significant adjustments. Military doctrine will need to continue to evolve to include new tactics, techniques and procedures for UAS-supported fire and maneuver. Following special operations’ lead in this domain, new protocols will have to be rapidly transitioned to the conventional forces.

Training programs must also change to focus on the operational skills required to manage UAS fleets, interpret real-time data and integrate UAS intelligence into broader operational contexts. This training should include ethical considerations related to privacy violations and rules of engagement in settings where civilian populations are often at risk.

Outlook

Innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning and autonomous operations are certain to further enhance UAS capabilities, making them more efficient and versatile. AI is poised to play a significant role in the future of UAS by enabling drones to perform complex tasks with minimal human intervention and adapt to dynamic combat environments, improving their ability to detect and respond to threats. Autonomous operations will reduce the burden on human operators, allowing for more efficient and effective mission execution.

Soon, we can also expect to see UAS with extended operational ranges, improved stealth features and advanced payload capabilities. Integrating UAS with other emerging technologies such as augmented reality and cyber warfare tools will also create new tactical opportunities and challenges.

The integration of UAS with AI will also give ground troops enhanced situational awareness, as well as better coordination and decision-making in the field. Likewise, cyber warfare tools will enable UAS to disrupt enemy communications and infrastructure, providing a strategic advantage in modern conflicts.

As UAS technology continues to evolve and domestic drone production expands, it is crucial for military and industry leaders to closely monitor threats while fostering an entrepreneurial environment that prioritizes continuous innovation, rigorous training and doctrinal adaptation. Through collaboration, the potential of UAS can be fully realized, ensuring that military operations are as effective and efficient as possible while minimizing risks to combatants and civilians.

Florent Groberg is a vice president at AE Industrial within the firm’s Portfolio Strategy and Optimization Group. Groberg previously held key positions at Microsoft, Boeing and LinkedIn. Prior to that, Groberg was a captain in the U.S. Army, completing both U.S. Army Airborne and U.S. Army Ranger schools. Groberg received the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat operations in Afghanistan in 2012. He currently serves on the American Battle Monuments Commission, an appointment by the president of the United States.

My husband served in the Navy for 20 years, where he specialized in disarming explosive devices, and his best friend was among those 31.

Most of my husband’s career was spent attached to Navy SEAL Team 2 and Navy SEAL Team 6, where he bravely carried out more than 12 combat deployments.

We were a tight community, and on that day in August, 31 of our friends and teammates lost their lives in an instant.

My husband had the harrowing task of notifying his best friend’s wife and children of his death and bringing his remains back to West Virginia.

We were never the same.

Psychedelic therapy data ‘speaks for itself,’ VA official says

After this mass casualty, we lost many others, either in combat, in training, or to suicide. I became depressed and constantly anxious that the ball was going to drop, and that my family would be the next to receive that dreaded knock on the door. I began having panic attacks and suicidal thoughts.

I was convinced no one gets out unscathed, and if you want the truth, no one really does.

A few years later, my husband retired with a 100% disability rating at just 39 years old, primarily due to invisible wounds—those deep-seated mental scars that no medal could ever begin to mend.

In the quiet desperation that often accompanies military service, both veterans and their families bear a weight that is rarely understood by those outside the fold. As a military spouse, I’ve witnessed firsthand the toll that years of service can take on the mind and spirit of those who have served our country. For years, our family navigated the turbulent waters of post-service life, where the aftershocks of trauma reverberated through our daily existence.

Both my husband and I have tried a range of therapies to heal. A decade after the accident, in July 2021, I was introduced to midomafetamine assisted therapy on a life-changing retreat to Mexico.

This treatment involves a drug known as MDMA, or on the street as ecstasy or Molly. I was invited along with six other special operation spouses to explore this treatment solution, since it has yet to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the U.S. It turned out to be a beacon of hope for healing deep-seated emotional wounds.

In a therapeutic setting, MDMA allows those suffering to access buried demons and trauma in a way that is gentle and compassionate—something traditional therapies often struggle to achieve. It’s not about escaping reality but confronting it head-on, under the guidance of trained therapists in a safe and supportive environment.

In 2017, the FDA designated MDMA-assisted therapy, as a “breakthrough therapy” because of clinically demonstrated evidence in treating the root causes of PTSD. In one example, a study found that following just three sessions of MDMA therapy, 71% of participants no longer met the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Our veterans need access to this treatment, but without FDA approval, it often remains out of reach. Veterans like my husband, for example, who work in government jobs after military retirement, are given strict polygraphs that specifically ask if the employee has ever taken a schedule I drug like MDMA. Without FDA approval of MDMA therapy, they cannot seek out this route without risking their security clearance.

One of the most profound challenges my husband has faced, which is common among veterans, is that his nervous system has become locked in a perpetual state of shutdown and detachment. This manifests as extreme fatigue, emotional numbness, and disconnection from both himself and loved ones.

I vividly recall a moment at my son’s hockey game. He scored a goal, the crowd cheered, and my husband dutifully clapped and smiled. Later that night, he said to me: “I go through the motions of happiness and excitement, but I feel nothing.” It was a stark reminder of the invisible battle raging within him, one that no amount of conventional therapy seemed able to reach.

Psychedelics may soon be available — sort of — to treat vets with PTSD

The FDA has not approved a new treatment for PTSD in nearly 25 years, leaving those suffering with antidepressant drugs a as approved treatments, medications that only seem to numb the pain. This keeps some people at a baseline of numbness—while they may not feel all the bad, they often struggle to feel joy.

Our veterans are experiencing a suicide epidemic, in part because they cannot access the care they need. Every day, an estimated 17 or more veterans die by suicide, totaling up to 16,000 veterans each year.

For veterans in particular, MDMA therapy provides clarity and allows them to uncover profound empathy and forgiveness for themselves—directly addressing guilt for leaving their families or painful experiences during war. It saves their lives.

Yet, despite its promising results, an FDA Advisory Committee recently declined to recommend MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, cherry picking small procedural concerns. The FDA will make its final decision on whether to approve MDMA for such therapy on August 11.

I strongly urge them to help veterans who are suffering and approve this lifesaving therapy.

The same veterans who risked everything for our country are being denied access to treatments that could offer them a chance at peace. Our veterans should not need to go abroad, or worse, seek this therapy in an unregulated environment within the U.S. It’s a cruel irony that those who sacrificed so much are often left to navigate their post-service lives with inadequate support for their mental health.

Veterans deserve every opportunity to heal, to reconnect with themselves and their families, and to reclaim the lives they put on hold in service to our nation. Denying them access to breakthrough therapies is not just a disservice; it’s a betrayal of the promises we made as a grateful nation. We deserve the right to try any and all options, treatments, and healing modalities available to recover, repair, and improve our lives after years of sacrifice.

We must give our veterans the chance to rewrite their stories, not as victims of war but as resilient survivors who deserve every chance to live full lives.

Elaine Brewer is a proud military wife. She is the founder of Humble Warrior, a 501c3 nonprofit, which aids in military and first responder mental health and wellness. Elaine lives with her husband and their two sons in St. Louis, Missouri.

A Flawed Measure of Readiness

The ACFT currently consists of six events designed to assess aspects of a soldier’s physical fitness: the three-repetition maximum deadlift, standing power throw, hand-release push-ups, sprint-drag-carry, plank, and a two-mile run. These events primarily measure strength, power, endurance, and agility. However, the ACFT lacks a component specifically targeting flexibility. Flexibility is crucial for preventing injuries and ensuring overall combat readiness. A 2022 study by Military Medicine highlights that fitness assessments focusing solely on strength may overlook crucial aspects of combat readiness, such as endurance, agility, flexibility, and occupationally specific physical performance.

Also, flexibility-specific training can reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injuries by preventing muscle strains. Improvements in flexibility have been shown to benefit the military by reducing lower extremity overuse injuries from jumping and sprinting activities, especially when exacerbated by uneven terrain and heavy load carriage. The study also highlights the necessity for further research on female physical fitness, emphasizing the importance of considering sex differences, such as hormonal variations and baseline physical fitness levels. While the ACFT’s focus on strength-based tasks may align more closely with male physiology, it might also disadvantage men by not adequately challenging them nor addressing other essential aspects crucial for combat readiness. These disparities not only call into question the efficacy of the ACFT in accurately measuring combat readiness, but also underscore the need for gender-specific assessments.

Background and Context

Historically, both male and female soldiers achieved high pass rates of 90% or higher on the APFT. This trend persisted for male soldiers with the gender-neutral ACFT. According to a RAND Corporation report, pass rates for enlisted men range from 83% to 92%, while male officers have pass rates between 86% to 96%. In stark contrast, female soldiers saw a significant rise in failure rates with enlisted women passing at rates from 41% to 52%, and female officers from 49% to 72%. The unchanged pass rates for men, despite the ACFT being designed as a more challenging test, reveal an unexpected consequence: the standards for men were effectively lowered. The ACFT places significant emphasis on raw strength, which aligns with the natural physiological strengths of men. This focus may create a misleading perception of overall fitness.

Despite recent adjustments to include age and gender scoring, a 2024 study co-authored by a current member of the U.S. military with a PhD in physiology, still found that the ACFT disadvantages women, as they now face significantly higher standards without corresponding adjustments for physiological differences. By examining the data, it becomes evident that there is an imbalance in the application of the new standards. Currently, there are no independently verifiable reports with data on the revised gender- and age-specific ACFT scores for 2023 or 2024. While the APFT had pass rates for women around 85-91%, the ACFT trials showed only about 16% of women passing, resulting in an 84% fail rate. Beyond the scores, these results reinforce the perception that women are not fit for combat, a notion that supports existing biases since combat roles were opened to women in 2015. Limiting women in combat roles through a test that physiologically disadvantages them undermines national security by preventing the military from fully utilizing its strength and capabilities. Creating standards based on brute strength and the resulting lower fitness scores unnecessarily disqualify women. Similarly, introducing unnecessary flexibility requirements for men could also disqualify them from certain roles if implemented. This discrepancy underscores the need for a more equitable assessment that accurately evaluates physical standards for all soldiers without disproportionately disadvantaging any group.

Proposed Solution for a Balanced Approach

A comprehensive fitness test, encompassing endurance, agility, and flexibility domains will enhance the Army’s combat readiness, reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injuries, and benefit all soldiers. Numerous medical studies highlight the need for further research on female physical fitness to ensure the most effective measurements and improve training programs. The military could conduct their own studies focused on females to address this need. Physical fitness tests should be gender-specific to account for physiological differences and provide accurate assessments, while combat tasks — such as marksmanship, grenade throwing, obstacle course navigation, casualty evacuation, weapon assembly, ruck marching, urban operations, patrolling, and navigation — should be evaluated on a gender-neutral basis to assess essential combat skills rather than feats of brute strength.

Conclusion

The current structure of the ACFT disadvantages both male and female soldiers by failing to accurately assess physical fitness levels and not encompassing all standards necessary for effectiveness in combat operations. ACFT advocates and leadership have always said that the test would change over time and be responsive to changes in fitness, Army needs, and feedback from credible research. This is to their advantage – the Army doesn’t want another non-responsive test carved in stone for the next 40 years. This is their chance to make good on that promise.

Maj. Amy Forza, Army Reserve, specializes in Civil Affairs (Airborne) and Military Intelligence, with 20 years of service. Her experience includes commanding a drill sergeant company, training soldiers at Initial Entry Training (IET), and multiple deployments, including to Afghanistan. Currently completing a master’s at the University of Oxford, her article critiques current military fitness assessments. These critiques reflect her personal views and are not representative of the official positions of the U.S. military.

Such issues threaten not only their current military readiness, but their ability to age in a healthy way, with a study released last fall revealing that nearly 70 percent of U.S. service members are within the overweight or obese ranges of the body mass index.

A previous research study enrolling active duty service members who were seeking assistance with weight management offers a case in point: A young male participant was at risk for early discharge from the military for exceeding body fat standards. He lacked a professional appearance in uniform and was unable to keep up on unit physical training.

When told that he had strong bones after a research study bone density scan, he had his platoon sergeant accompany him to the research office so we could explain that he had “big bones” which accounted for his large body mass.

Unfortunately, we could not support that justification and he was ultimately discharged after failing to drop any body fat mass over the 12-week counseling period of the study. He had come to terms with his situation, saying his hometown police force had a position waiting for him. It is unlikely he would be able to meet the physical requirements for that position either.

Nearly 70% of active service members are overweight, report finds

This is one of many stories demonstrating the consequences for an overweight or obese service member. In a relatively short period of time, he or she may be discharged without future job prospects, possibly having experienced a recent physical activity-limiting injury, and a health status involving abnormal lipid levels and elevated blood pressure, conditions requiring medical oversight.

A service member being overweight impacts their ability to contribute to their respective unit’s mission. Statistics that reveal a continuing, alarming climb in rates of overweight and obesity in children and adults in America apply to America’s troops as well.

Obesity almost doubled from 22% to 42% in U.S. adults between 1988 and 2020. Active component Army statistics show a current rate of obesity of 20%, with overweight soldiers comprising approximately 40% to 50% of the force.

Therefore, we must be agile, resourceful and innovative in our approach to a service member’s overall health, while encouraging leadership across every unit to engage on this issue. More must be done.

As health care professionals and scientists, we see real-time consequences of neglected health in our clinics and research populations every single day.

Health promotion research conducted by my team and others has incorporated strategies involving everything from DNA-based counseling to activity trackers to raise awareness and educate troops about how bad food choices affect their body composition, blood pressure and vitamin levels.

When troops neglect their fitness, they increase their chance of suffering an injury that will take longer to recover from, as well as potential pain and a loss to their unit. An unhealthy formation is a combat ineffective formation; the lethality of our military is at risk by this pervasive health epidemic.

Pandemic pounds push 10,000 Army soldiers into obesity

In a time of a military-wide recruiting crisis, we cannot afford to lose trained, but physically unfit, troops because they are unable to do their military jobs, becoming candidates for early discharge in the process.

A common myth is that all service members have statures like elite athletes who have 24/7 access to optimal nutrition, physical training resources, and coaching, but this is not true for a large population of our ranks.

But due to diverse garrison environments, training demands, and limited access to high quality nutrition, American troops exhibit a wide range of fitness and health literacy.

The solution must be a multi-pronged approach by leaders to apply evidence-based recommendations and translate research findings to create a culture of health in all military environments.

Dip, Doritos and drinking: Why the Army can’t get in shape

The following are some steps we believe unit commanders can take to counter this crisis:

- Leaders must educate themselves and their subordinates. Engage in conversations about safe and healthy lifestyle behaviors, including diet, sleep, and physical activity.

- Leaders must set the example. They should visit their dining facilities, promote a performance-focused food environment and policies that allow sufficient time for meals, while continually assessing unit dining options and encouraging input from their troops regarding nutritious meals, snacks, and beverages in garrison.

- Leaders must monitor unit data regarding musculoskeletal injuries, sleep, and nutrition and hydration metrics. Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, teams have demonstrated impressive results in support of readiness. Seek out and support what H2F teams can do for your command.

- Leaders should support research opportunities available to the unit that advance the science of nutrition, exercise, and sleep in military populations. With the help of the H2F Team of researchers, the Military Nutrition Environment Assessment Tool (m-NEAT) can be used to assess the military food environment, promote a culture of health and boost community alignment to address food architecture in convenience marts, commissaries and exchanges, while strengthening healthy lifestyle practices messaging to the ranks.

- Leaders should re-evaluate health risk assessment intervals. Height, weight, waist and hip circumference and blood pressure are low burden, reliable, and evidence-based measures of cardiovascular risk and can be performed by unit medics.

- Finally, leaders should take care of themselves. A fit CO shows that you value your own health and wellness, which will help you lead from the front and be the best leader you can be.

The military should also continue to explore making anti-obesity medications available to service members, particularly for those who don’t respond to traditional paths.

Since 2023, an Army service-specific policy allows the use of FDA-approved prescription anti-obesity medications for soldiers who are supervised by a provider in a treatment facility under operational control of the Defense Health Agency.

Service members deserve this consideration when such medications are accompanied by comprehensive lifestyle interventions and engaged leadership.

Taken together, these actions may reduce chronic disease risk, promote physical and mental health, and restore the injured service member to a fit and ready state.

Mary McCarthy is a senior nurse scientist with the Defense Health Agency’s Center for Nursing Science & Clinical Inquiry at the Madigan Army Medical Center.

Lt. Col. Tanisha Currie is deputy chief for nursing science and clinical inquiry, and senior advisor to the Joint Forces Leadership Council at Brooke Army Medical Center.

Capt. Kevin M. Kilroy is a physician’s assistant at Okubo Clinic at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Among the branches of the United States military, the National Guard is unique. It serves as a reserve force ready to be deployed to combat overseas and it is also available to help respond to natural disasters and other emergencies here at home.

If used wisely, the National Guard is an invaluable asset to our national security and well-being. However, we have become concerned that the Guard is being used for an increasing number of missions outside of its core functions. That is why we, along with a group of other retired civilian and military leaders, recently published a statement attempting to help recalibrate the use of the National Guard.

In recent years, Guard members have been asked to execute an increasing variety of nontraditional missions. They have patrolled the border, taught in high schools, guarded prisons, filled in for civilian police officers, and served in a range of situations that stretch the definition of “emergency.” More and more often, governors and presidents — from both political parties — call upon the Guard to address problems that are typically handled by civilian authorities.

These missions come at a considerable cost to state and federal taxpayers, and they run the risk of diverting resources that could be dedicated to training and preparedness for core National Guard responsibilities as the primary combat reserve of the United States Army and the United States Air Force.

Even in the absence of new obligations, much is asked of National Guard members. They must be trained, equipped, and ready, when called upon, to perform a variety of different functions: to serve in combat overseas, to help respond to violent civil unrest at home and to provide assistance during domestic natural and manmade disasters. Maintaining readiness for these traditional functions is no small task, particularly given that most National Guard members balance their service obligations with full-time civilian jobs and with commitments to their families and communities.

The individual men and women of the National Guard want to be of service to their communities, and we are confident that they will execute their assigned missions to the best of their ability, no matter the task. At a certain point, however, overuse of the National Guard threatens the Guard’s ability to effectively execute core missions — missions that protect lives and property. It threatens the Guard’s readiness and availability to respond to genuine disasters or to be deployed to combat overseas.

And it threatens the public trust in the National Guard and the broader United States military. Often, nontraditional deployments coincide with a particular political agenda, and that appearance, warranted or not, can erode the trust that the Guard depends on to effectively execute its missions.

These are the considerations that we and our colleagues emphasize in our statement: mission preparedness, overall readiness and public trust. We think that these values should guide determinations about when to deploy the National Guard and should counsel in favor of restraint when there are other tools available.

Having helped inform decisions to deploy the National Guard, we fully recognize that they can be challenging. Often, it is state governors who must take on the considerable responsibility of deploying their National Guard units, and they must do so based on their own understanding of the need and the risks. Civilian political leaders are the ones who ultimately make these decisions. Voters are the ones who ultimately hold them accountable.

It is for this reason that we offer principles, not prescriptions. We hope that these principles will help spark a thoughtful public conversation about the appropriate use of the National Guard. And we welcome engagement and feedback both from those of you in uniform and from interested members of the American public.

Alongside our fellow retired civilian and military leaders at Count Every Hero, we are committed to doing our part to ensure that the National Guard remains a strong and ready military force worthy of the faith of the American people. We hope our elected leaders will do their part by endeavoring to deploy the National Guard only in the best interests of their states and our nation.

Daryl Bohac, a retired general, formerly served as Adjutant General for the Nebraska National Guard. Joseph Lengyel, a retired general, served as the 28th chief of the National Guard Bureau. Craig McKinley, a retired general, served as the 26th chief of the National Guard Bureau. Allyson Solomon, a retired general, formerly served as Assistant Adjutant General for the Maryland Air National Guard. Paul Stockton formerly served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs.

The C-130 bounced like a rollercoaster at a cheap traveling circus. I sat on the cargo netting bench seats surrounded by first-time jumpers and pretended to sleep.

All I could think about—other than that one of these bastards was going to get me killed—was how the fuck I got here.

I’d deployed to Iraq, and I was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in a few months. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the day something was going to go terribly wrong.

About a month before, in September 2011, a large group of Canadians arrived at Fort Liberty in North Carolina for a joint training exercise. They brought a ton of parachutes with them so that when we performed large-scale operations together, we could jump using their equipment and methods. We’d earn their jump wings as a foreign award.

But the weather pissed rain almost the entire month they were with us, so most of the jumps got canceled. Not wanting to take back all the unused parachutes, the Canadians created a series of open jumps.

I’d been assigned to participate in one of them, along with two other people from our company.

The staging area that day was a madhouse, filled with multiple chalks—a line of 30 to 40 paratroopers who jump in a sequence. Eventually, the jump master began arranging the three of us into the chalks. This is an important task. If you make a mistake when you jump, you’ll probably be fine, but it could kill the paratrooper behind you. Having too many inexperienced jumpers together is especially dangerous.

As it turned out, this was a very inexperienced group.

With 14 jumps behind me—plus the five I’d performed in Jump School at Fort Moore—I was among the more seasoned paratroopers.

When the jumpmaster began surrounding me with inexperienced jumpers, I asked if he was trying to kill me.

“No,” he replied with an understanding tone. “This is the best we’ve got.”

Next, we got some quick training on how the Canadian military performs their jump commands. Notably, they throw their static lines—fixed cords attached to the plane that automatically open the parachutes.

After taking my seat in a tightly packed C-130, I noticed some of the troops were visibly shaking, reminding me again of their inexperience.

In the airborne community, we say, “When it no longer scares you, you have to quit.”

Fear makes you pay attention. And when you’re jumping out of a plane, there are lots of things to pay attention to. But too much fear is also a problem.

As a more experienced paratrooper, I figured it was my job to give them the impression I was unfazed. I told the guy next to me to wake me up when we got there and pretended to fall asleep.

But my heart was racing.

At last, the doors to the plane opened. The jumpmaster grabbed the doorway and leaned out. We worked through the commands and checks.

“Go, go, go!” shouted the jumpmaster.

We started moving forward. Paratroopers threw their static lines and exited the side door. When it was my turn, I pulled together all of my strength, wound up, and threw the static line as hard as I could.

The static line shot back as it should. I made a 90-degree left face to walk out the door and ran into the jumper in front of me. I’d been so focused on throwing the static line I hadn’t seen him freeze in the doorway.

The force of the impact sent him out the door, and he made a clean exit. I landed on the floor, half in the plane and half out, stuck. The prop blast hitting me in the face made it hard to breathe.

After what felt like a week but was probably no more than a second, someone shoved me out the door. I slid across the skin of the plane. The chute opened, causing me to do a flip. My helmet was ripped off my head.

At this point, training kicked in. I looked up. My chute had a “cigarette roll,” meaning it was not inflating but instead acting like a streamer in the wind. I grabbed the risers that connected me to the chute and yanked them apart, trying to get the chute to inflate.

It finally inflated, and I started to slow down. Next, I tried to find a nice place to land. But I’d run out of time. I was about to hit the ground.

I felt a rush of pain. Then nothingness.

When I came to, I realized my chute was starting to inflate to drag me across the drop zone. I popped a riser to deflate it. I wiggled my toes and tried to get an idea of the damage. My back seemed out of commission, but the screaming pain assured me I was not paralyzed.

Somewhere out of sight, a friend from my chalk hit the ground next to my helmet and knew right away something was wrong. He set off running. After cresting a small hill, he found me and shouted for a medic.

They appeared in a Humvee, and three things went through my head. First: If I was driven off the drop zone, I probably wouldn’t get my Canadian Jump Wings, and this would be all for naught. Second: If I could walk off the drop zone, it would still be considered a “good” jump. Third: The bumpy ride in the Humvee might very well finish me off.

In the most polite and diplomatic way I could muster, I informed them I would prefer to walk. This came out as a long line of swear words and threats.

“Fine then. Let’s see you stand up,” a medic said.

“Fuck you,” I said, and with a lot of help, got to my feet.

The medics pulled up my shirt to have a look at my back. “Well, no bones are poking out, so if you want to walk off the drop zone, we won’t stop you.”

I was helped back into my equipment—about 50 pounds of it. Pain exploded again in my back, and I nearly passed out a second time.

No one ever walks off a drop zone. They run. I watched the others with envy and walked as fast as I could, expecting to get screamed at.

“The turn-in point is just over there,” a first sergeant said calmly. “You got this. You’re almost there.” I realized then I must really be hurt.

I did my best to stand up straight in formation to accept my Canadian Jump Wings from a colonel who pinned them to my chest.

Next came a major working the line. By now, I’d lost my military bearing.

“How was your jump?” the major asked, shaking my hand.

“I walked off the drop zone, sir,” I said through clenched teeth.

He took a second look. “Damn, how long have you been Airborne?”

“Too long, sir.”

A few hours later, my chief warrant officer found me on my back with my legs on a chair at the office.

“You’re not going to sick call tomorrow, are you? I need you to clear an arms room at 0700.”

Over the next three months, as we prepared to deploy to Afghanistan, I never fell out of a ruck march or running formation. Occasionally, I did go to sick call if I lost feeling in my legs after a particularly bad physical training session. Each time, a doctor told me to change my socks, drink water, and take a handful of 800 mg Motrin.

Then, on a whim, a physician’s assistant told me to get an X-ray.

I was now a squad leader in charge of a group of young, inexperienced privates training six days a week. I didn’t have time for this. Finally, I went.

I was at work when I got a call from the PA, who wanted to discuss the results.

“Do you want to hear it over the phone?” she asked in a concerned tone.

“What the hell does that mean?” I shouted. “Do I have hours to live or something?”

“OK. You have a compressed L2 vertebra,” she said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“You have severe spinal cord damage. If you had another jump, you would have been killed. You are not only no longer deployable, but you will be refused reenlistment.”

That I understood. We talked a bit longer, but I didn’t hear anything else.

Over the next two days, we worked out what to do with my squadron—they’d be broken up and shared with all the companies. I was to spend my last three weeks in the Army working at a gym.

I felt abandoned and betrayed. That I’d failed my guys, my unit, and my military.

All these years later, I know I would have been a liability, that the military did what they had to. I still have days when I wake up unable to move one leg or both. But it is one more day I wouldn’t have had if I’d pushed myself any harder, and I am grateful for that.

This War Horse reflection was written by Jonathan Ore, edited by Kristin Davis, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines.

Jon Ore medically retired from the Army after serving in the 82nd Airborne and spent one year deployed in the Ramadi and Fallujah areas of Iraq. He continued his service in Peace Corps Tanzania and AmeriCorps New Orleans. Today, he works as an emergency manager and veteran advocate for nonprofits in New Orleans.

The undeveloped Arctic region, with its wealth of resources, logistical nodes for faster travel and vast military and strategic potential, has long made it an important frontier for nations including Russia and the U.S. seeking geopolitical dominance.

Now, the People’s Republic of China is looking to the Arctic as part of its long-term strategy to replace the U.S. as the leading world power both economically and militarily. It wants the access and positional advantage of potential new shipping routes and resources that the Arctic region provides, and China is investing and engaging in scientific studies to increase influence in the region.

As a “near Arctic state,” China is unable to pursue open military presence in the region, so the country is pushing economically by investing over $90 billion in scientific research. The Chinese first entered the region back in 2003 in Norway by building a research base which began their expanse of influence within the region. It is also establishing other connections with Arctic states and involving itself in the counsels.

This strategy is giving China a growing foothold in the area. The country’s involvement in the free trade agreement policy with Iceland also brings it to the table as it discusses a future influential area with untapped recourses and closer borders to more vulnerable regions of the world.

At first glance, this approach seems simple and straight-forward, however, a deeper look shows that China is conducting strategic moves that will have long-term benefit for the PRC. Multiple attempts of purchasing land has been made in nations in or near the Arctic regions, including potential golf courses, three airfields, and a former military base.

All of these proposals have been rejected by the Arctic state amid growing concern of China choosing strategic infrastructure that would develop ports, active airfields and access to future nodes. Even against opposition, the PRC is able to partner with nations such as Finland and Greenland to increase communication capabilities in new areas. It’s is also working on undersea cables along the Northern Sea Route to lessen their dependency on external nations for information movement flows.

The number one priority for the U.S. in the region is security,as outlined in the National Strategy for the Arctic Region. Updates made in 2022 define more focused and achievable goals after observing the lack of effort compared to other Arctic states and near-Arctic nations. The U.S. goal is to protect its interests by deterring potential threats and mitigating future risk.

The best method to deter adversaries is by having a consistent and strong presence. Specialized training in harsh Arctic environments prepares soldiers how to handle situations in extreme cold weather that are harmful to people and leads to slower mission planning and execution by substantial margins. Being able to survive or thrive in temperatures below negative thirty degrees Fahrenheit requires an already present and equipped force that has established processes to win in that environment.

On June 6, 2022, the 11th Airborne Division was activated to achieve success in those harsh environments. By executing expeditionary missions and expanding the unknown impacts of multi-domain operations, they can better predict how to win in an Arctic environment. They increase their competence through the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center in Alaska to make them a stronger presence in the Arctic to deter threats and mitigate risk to previously vulnerable regions.

China has had more than twenty years of strategically moving to become an actual Arctic state player. The investment far exceeds the time and effort the U.S. has put into the new frontier. The PRC still lacks the advantage, but is staged to be more influential and successful in the joint cooperation and infrastructure development required to maintain a growing presence in the Arctic.

The best time to start this endeavor was twenty years ago and the second-best time to start is now. America has started late in this race and needs more foresight on how to win in the Arctic.

Captain Nicholas Tachias is a Military Intelligence Officer in the United States Army. He’s a graduate of the University of Alabama in Huntsville earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Systems with a concentration in Business Analytics in 2019.

Eighty years later, commemorations were held June 15, 2024, on Saipan to remember the battle and to honor those who sacrificed so much.

Operation Forager

The Battle of Saipan was part of the U.S. military’s Operation Forager, which also included taking Tinian and liberating Guam. Capturing Saipan and the neighboring islands meant Tokyo would be within range of the United States’ B-29 Superfortress bombers.

As explained by Don Farrell, author of “Seabees and Superforts at War,” it was “a critical turning point” in the Pacific War.

“The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-British Chiefs of Staff recognized it would be a costly, bloody battle,” Farrell wrote. “But they also realized that if Saipan, Tinian and Guam were captured, then the fleet could turn due north toward Japan. They concluded that the capture of the Marianas would provide a faster route to Japan.”

Japan had designated the islands as part of its “absolute national defense sphere” and knew what losing them would mean. Japan had control over Tinian and Saipan since 1914 and had invaded Guam just after it attacked Pearl Harbor. Imperial Japanese forces had years to fortify the islands. By the time the Americans arrived off the coast of Saipan, there were more than 30,000 Imperial Japanese troops dug in.

The battle itself was a brutal, intense and a compressed microcosm of the war in the Pacific, described by Naval History and Heritage Command as “the most daring — and disturbing — operation in the U.S. war against Japan to date.”

It was disturbing, in part, because of the large civilian population. Around 20,000 Japanese, Okinawans and Koreans, plus 4,000 Chamorros, were on Saipan when the 71,000 U.S. troops landed, most from the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the 27th Infantry Division.

For Japanese forces, this was a desperate last stand. When it was clear Japan was losing, commanding Japanese General Yoshitsugu Saitō committed suicide. In the early morning hours of July 7, an estimated 4,000 Japanese charged American positions in one of the largest “banzai” charges of the war. Hundreds, and possibly more, Japanese civilians threw themselves off “suicide” and “banzai” cliffs.

Meanwhile, American forces — which included Navajo Code Talkers and local Scouts, the latter of whom were eventually made full Marines — were caught between the brutal desperation of Japanese forces, attempts to save civilians and sheer survival.

By the time the battle officially ended on July 9, America had endured more than 16,500 casualties, including close to 3,500 killed. On the Japanese side, 921 were taken prisoner. The rest died in battle or by suicide.

The capture of Saipan led to the capture of Tinian, which allowed for the establishment of the Tinian airfields. These became some of the busiest airfields in the world as waves of B-29s took off to hit Japan. This was also where the Enola Gay and Bockscar took to the sky on their way toward Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, leading to the end of the war in the Pacific.

After the war, Saipan, Tinian and the rest of what is now the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas voted to enter into a “Covenant” with the United States and formally joined the U.S., granting American citizenship to their residents. Today, the people of the Marianas serve in the U.S. military at high rates.

The commemoration

The 80th anniversary commemoration ceremony began at Green Beach, where some of the 8,000 Marines who came ashore in the first 20 minutes of the massive amphibious operation landed. They were represented by the sons of three 4th Marine Division veterans.

They laid a wreath at the veterans memorial, then moved the commemorations to American Memorial Park, where a parade — including representatives from the 4th Marine Division — and speeches followed. The Japanese consul spoke sincerely about the bond now shared between Japan and the U.S.

Another speaker, Saipan mayor Hon. Ramon “RB” Jose Blas Camacho, was instrumental in ensuring the event happened as scheduled despite Saipan’s present economic difficulties.

In an interview, he explained that he wanted to make sure the younger generation remembered the courage and sacrifice that occurred there 80 years ago.

“Just imagine when they landed … the worry, the fear,” he said.

He also wanted to put a spotlight on Saipan.

“Every year they talk about Normandy, but what happened here was really important.”

It was. It changed the Pacific — and resulted in a new piece of America being created. That transformation was embodied by attendee Cdr. Christine Igisomar. The Marianas native is the highest-ranking Chamorro woman in U.S. Coast Guard history. After the ceremony, she was on her way to her new post as Coast Guard liaison to the Philippines Coast Guard.

The Commonwealth of Northern Marianas is where America touches Asia and, while the theme of the commemoration was “80 Years of Peace in the Pacific,” the region is once again on the front lines.

The airfields at Tinian are being rehabilitated in a $409 million Air Force project. At the same time, this is the only U.S. territory where Chinese nationals can arrive without a visa. Regional tensions are building.

Still, in true commemoration of the warriors who died in Saipan, the message from the Marines is clear. In his speech, 4th Marine Division Commanding General Brig. Gen. John K. Jarrard had a message for any current enemies listening: “Be afraid.”

Cleo Paskal is Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

PTSD is not just a medical diagnosis but a poignant symbol of a collective, enduring struggle. While we’ve seen resources and treatments provided for PTSD increase as well as a broader acceptance for those impacted by this injury, we’ve also seen these men and women viewed as though they’re broken.

Veterans who embody the ethos of post-traumatic growth — the positive psychological change experienced as a result of overcoming highly challenging and stressful life situations — push back against that “broken” narrative. I urge you to join Josh Goldberg, CEO of Boulder Crest, in marking June 13 on your calendar as National Post-Traumatic Growth Day.

We have seen examples of post-traumatic growth throughout history, where significant adversity can spark substantial progress and change. Since our nation’s founding, waves of American veterans have demonstrated how they’ve become incredible civic assets after their military service. From George Washington to Dwight D. Eisenhower, John McCain and Colin Powell, these veterans became icons of American statesmanship.

Post-traumatic growth doesn’t just apply to politics and public service. We also see growth in the entrepreneurial spirit in veterans who started small businesses and went on to become titans of industry. Today, there are 2.5 million veteran-owned companies, exemplified by decorated Iraq War veterans like Blake Hall and Dawn Halfaker.

After Hall’s 2004 Vanderbilt Army ROTC commissioning, he became a rifle platoon leader and served in Iraq, twice earning the Bronze Star. After his Army service, he graduated from Harvard Business School and started ID.me in 2010, which simplifies how individuals securely prove and share their identity online. Dawn Halfaker, a 2001 West Point graduate, earned the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for her service in Iraq in 2004. She came home as an amputee and founded Halfaker and Associates two years later. She now runs HAFCO Holdings LLC as well as Continuing to Serve, a non-profit supporting veteran entrepreneurs.

John F. Kennedy was once asked what actions led him to become a war hero, which launched his career in public service. “It was involuntary — they sank my boat,” he said. My post-traumatic growth occurred in the same vein. I returned from an Iraq deployment with the 82nd Airborne Division’s Falcon Brigade in 2004 with the burden of 19 paratroopers killed in action. Spurred to live a life worth their sacrifice, I aimed to become the man I thought they would want me to be, and to live a life of meaning. I became the first Iraq War veteran elected to Congress, leading the effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and serving as the co-sponsor of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, which has sent more than 1.1 million people to college. As the 32nd Undersecretary of the Army, I pushed for policies to reduce the stigma of seeking help, resulting in the addition of embedded behavioral health teams at the battalion level.

One key way to experience growth after service is by stoking the fires of the post-9/11 generation’s entrepreneurial spirit. This is why I’ve leaned on a generation of veterans who preceded me, like Alex Gorsky, the former CEO of Johnson & Johnson and Bob McDonald, the former CEO of Proctor & Gamble and the 8th Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. These former soldiers and business leaders helped me achieve post-traumatic growth in the way I hope to see from others. Our generation has collectively survived the crucible of combat — running a business is a purpose-driven mission that veterans can collectively appreciate.

World War II veterans came home and took part in that same mission, and in the process, built the world’s most iconic brands, including the largest sports apparel company (Nike), the largest retailer (Walmart), and the world’s biggest media company (Comcast).

In contrast, fewer than 5% of post-9/11 veterans start their own business today. But it’s more than just access to capital. As post-9/11 veterans, we must define who we are and, more importantly, who we can become. It took more than five decades for the WWII generation to be defined as “the greatest generation” by Tom Brokaw — after two decades of war, we cannot afford to wait five more decades to define our generation’s continued service.

This generation’s veterans are more likely to be employed, more likely to vote in elections, and yes, more likely to start a successful small business. The Halls and Halfakers will become the next Phil Knight or Ralph Lauren if given the chance. This begins today, on National Post-Traumatic Growth Day, as we recognize, celebrate, and properly frame post-traumatic growth — the opportunity our generation has to overcome the toughest of circumstances to turn our struggle into success.

Patrick J. Murphy is a decorated Iraq War veteran, venture capitalist, Wharton Business School lecturer. He was the first Iraq War veteran elected to Congress and served as the 32nd Undersecretary of the Army.

As a partner in Stony Lonesome Group, Murphy’s venture capital group is an ID.me investor. He serves with Dawn Halfaker on the board of Drexel Hamilton.

The latest Warrior Survey from Wounded Warrior Project found that sleep was the top reported health issue among veterans registered with the organization, with 80% reporting sleep problems. Many post-9/11 veterans are having trouble sleeping and staying asleep, and this significantly impacts their quality of life.

Evidence suggests that veterans’ duration of sleep and sleep quality are directly correlated with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other mental and physical health challenges.

The prevalence of these conditions within this generation of veterans highlights the critical role sleep plays in overall wellness. Improving sleep quality is pivotal for enhancing quality of life, given the complex connection between sleep, physical health, and mental wellbeing.

A veteran’s journey through sleep problems

Air Force veteran and nurse Melissa McMahon is no stranger to sleepless nights.

Her sleep problems started when she lifted a fellow service member from a chair and heard a loud pop in her lower back and hips. She worked through the pain and her condition worsened over time.

Melissa experienced partial mobility loss on her left side, persistent backaches, and shifts between fatigue and a longing for sleep. She reached a breaking point when she started experiencing tremors that impacted her ability to provide medicine to patients.

Melissa then received a diagnosis of fibromyalgia — a disorder she learned is trauma-based and characterized by chronic muscle pain, tenderness, fatigue, and sleep disturbances. Her condition forced her to transition to administrative work within the Air Force, which made her feel increasingly isolated.

Coping with her new diagnosis, new role in the military, and physical limitations contributed to feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety.

These challenges, combined with poor diet and lack of physical activity and energy, led to extremes in Melissa’s sleep patterns. She either slept too long due to intense fatigue, averaging about 10 to 12 hours per day, or she would not sleep enough, with only a couple hours each night, hampered further by nightmares.

Melissa’s journey mirrors the story of many veterans grappling with the lasting effects of military service. The impact of poor sleep on quality of life has been well documented — affecting mental health and cognitive function and leading to an increase in unhealthy decisions around risky behaviors, diet, and exercise.

Research shows that common comorbid conditions among veterans diagnosed with sleep disorders include obesity, diabetes, congestive heart failure, depression, PTSD, and TBI.

How to support veterans’ sleep challenges

When Melissa realized she was having more bad days than good, she sought help. Through a personalized, multi-week coaching program with WWP’s Physical Health and Wellness team, Melissa identified the factors that hindered quality sleep and the factors that contributed to good sleep.

She recognized the impact of isolation on her mental health, and she addressed her severe depression and anxiety. Melissa adjusted her lifestyle by transforming her nutrition, adopting a well-balanced diet, and significantly increasing her exercise routine from one to two times per week to four to five times per week.

Over the years, her dedication paid off. Melissa gained mental strength, reconnected with peers, and reignited old hobbies, such as swimming and car racing. Most notably, she rediscovered the gift of restful sleep.

Sleep disorders and chronic pain are prevalent in veterans and have historically been viewed as secondary issues. Melissa’s story shows that sleep is complex and often should be viewed as the primary issue.

Sleep is not a singular challenge, nor is there one quick fix. The root causes for poor sleep are often a combination of physical and mental health. Understanding this connection and recognizing the profound impact of sleep on veterans is key to supporting their recovery.

Individualized programs extend a helping hand, guiding veterans like Melissa toward greater overall wellness. By considering the big picture — mental, physical, and social — we can empower warriors to reclaim their well-being, enhance their sleep, and improve their quality of life.

James Herrera is the vice president of Physical Health and Wellness for Wounded Warrior Project. He is an exercise physiologist and former Olympic coach who helps lead the organization’s Soldier Ride, adaptive sports, and health and wellness programs.

I rode the third chopper in a daisy chain of five, each bird maybe 30 seconds behind the next. Clutching my M16 rifle in the left-side door gunner’s seat and surrounded by men cocooned in combat gear, I sat on a flak jacket in the vague hope that a slug coming up through the ship’s soft aluminum belly wouldn’t make me a eunuch.

The regular door gunner was back at base camp; I had his seat because a Huey has only so much room—aside from the pilots and crew chief, who doubled as right-side door gunner, there were nine grunts aboard. My assignment was to photograph combat operations with A Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry. I’d been in Vietnam for almost six weeks. This was my first helicopter assault.

We flew nap-of-the-earth—as close to the ground as possible—in a swirling netherworld of cloud and mist. Rain condensed inside the helicopter. Everything dripped, all was wet—my rifle, uniform, exposed skin, my camera.

The camera was a Speed Graphic—a combat photographer’s joke, designed in 1912, with “improvements” and “features” grafted on for the next 30 years. Its outstanding feature was that it made me learn a new trick almost every time I used it. Nothing was automated. To make a single photo, I had to set the aperture and shutter speed, based on my guess about exposure—I had no light meter—then cock the shutter, remove the black steel “dark slide” protecting the film from accidental exposure, focus, compose a shot, then trip the shutter.

If I didn’t pay close attention, I could double expose, shoot blanks, fog previous exposures, or make out-of-focus images. My particular camera was built in 1945, about the same age as most of the C rations we ate. It was a fabric-covered wooden box with fold-out bellows, two different shutters, and a Rube Goldberg film pack sticking out of the back. It was supposedly easier to use than earlier models’ old-fashioned film holders. I hated that box—but it and its twin were the only Army-issue cameras in the Air Cav Public Information Office.

Two minutes ahead, the lead chopper dipped into a jungle clearing called a landing zone, or LZ. I set the camera’s aperture and film speed, and “zone” focused it so anything 10 feet and farther would be acceptably sharp. If I didn’t bump it against something getting out of the helicopter.

And if I’d guessed right about the exposure.

In my headphones, I heard a pilot say something quick and terse that I couldn’t quite make out. In seconds the lead chopper lifted out, empty, whirling up through the green treetops and vanishing into the mist. Behind it, the second chopper dipped into the jungle and left my sight.

As we closed on the LZ, our bird slowed, bleeding airspeed, losing altitude. The second Huey climbed back up through the trees. Suddenly it erupted into a giant fireball! Our pilot cursed and pulled pitch and we shot skyward, grazing the very top of the flames. My nose and throat filled with the stench of burned hair. I gagged. My eyebrows vanished. My damp clothes were suddenly dry.

Then we were jinking left and right and hugging the hillside as we cleared the area. Two or three minutes ticked by—a lifetime. We banked sharply and circled back toward the LZ, the two Hueys behind us following in formation. The pilots yelled back and forth in my ears, discussing the situation. The gist of it was that there were at least two squads of grunts and possibly survivors from the second ship’s crew in the LZ. The pilots were deciding how best to get into that clearing with their remaining infantrymen.

And me.

My gut growled that even if I had to fly through fire twice—landing and taking off—staying on the chopper was less risky than joining those grunts in a jungle swarming with enemy troops. I might be there a long time. Or forever. I didn’t see what difference it would make to the guys on the ground, to the war, to my country, if I was with them in the jungle or if I stayed with the chopper.

In truth, I really didn’t want to get off that bird.

A voice in my ears, louder than before, said something about a Viet Cong .51-caliber machine gun higher up the hill and sighted along the LZ’s approach axis. Then another voice, fainter but different. Miles away, above the clouds, a pair of helicopter gunships were inbound, red-lined at 120 knots. Their tanks were nearly dry but might have fuel enough to put a few rockets on that 51.

Our pilots conversed again in my headset, making a plan. There wasn’t room in the LZ to land sideways, so we’d drop down below the ridge. While the gunships engaged the 51, we’d pop up on the LZ’s flank and try to side-slip in through the treetops. Black smoke marked the Huey’s hillside funeral pyre as we hurtled at 100 mph toward it.

Unbidden, scenes from a life barely lived flashed by. Mistakes I had made. People I had disappointed. Friends I had wronged. A $20 bill I had filched from a drunken buddy’s wallet years earlier. A girl who gently spurned me. Another who laughed at my earnest efforts to interest her. My first sex. The last time. My demented mother. My struggling father. My baby brother, an unexpected, change-of-life child raised by siblings. My brooding, introverted brother, Ted. My brilliant brother, Matt. My older sister, Freyda, the Jesus-freak baby factory. My beautiful little sister, Ila, so desperate to escape our family madhouse that she married the first guy who asked and then had to run from him, too. Things I wanted to do, things I might now never get the chance to do. I had yet to feel truly loved. I might never be a father. No one would even miss me.

I cursed myself for a fool. I really didn’t have to be here.

Floundering, drowning in fear and self-loathing, I reminded myself why I was here. Why I was in Vietnam. On this helicopter. Why I had volunteered for this mission. And that if I did survive—maybe, even if I didn’t—then there was the possibility, at least, that I could get a picture, or maybe a few, and that people all over the world might eventually see them. Maybe forever. Maybe that wasn’t important to anybody else, but it was the reason I had reenlisted. And it was also the job the Army had given me to do.

I knew in my bones that if I didn’t un-ass this ‘copter, this time, if I didn’t go boldly into that hot LZ with these grunts, if I didn’t believe in myself and my training and my buddies—then I never would. This time or never.

Was I a man or still pretending?

I felt, rather than heard, the concussion of a pair of rockets exploding on the ridge above us. The jungle rushed up. Branches clutched at our landing skids. Tree limbs and leaves flashed by. Behind me, the crew chief opened up with his M60, a stream of red tracers ricocheting off the ground. A stream of glowing green golf balls, lethal Viet Cong tracers, curved down from high on the ridge, tracking us as we fell into the LZ. Somehow, they all missed.

Three feet short of the turf, the grunt next to me leaped out. I followed, stumbled, found my feet, hit the ground running, fighting for balance, feeling more ridiculous than vulnerable, clutching a rifle in my left hand and that ancient camera in my right. It was 40 yards, give or take, to the edge of the clearing, to the tree line and the illusion of cover. The camera bag hammered my hip with every step. I weighed 50 tons, running through quicksand. Steel-jacketed hornets buzzed past my ears; for once I was glad to be a five-foot soldier in a six-foot army. I threw myself behind a big tree, near a rifleman firing into the jungle.

Gasping for air, I heard the chopper rev up behind me and suddenly became conscious of a crackling crescendo of gunfire all around. I had landed awkwardly, and as I struggled to turn my body, the firing doubled and then redoubled. The empty Huey struggled skyward; a long, deep breath later and another one slipped down through the greenery. A hurricane of jungle-floor debris, driven by furious blades, stung every inch of my exposed skin.

I snaked my body around maybe 90 degrees and brought the Graphic up, cocked the shutter with my left hand, and aimed through the square of wire, the so-called sports finder. A GI sprinted toward me, went prone 10 feet away, and let loose a whole M16 magazine, fully automatic, into the jungle.

At God knows what.

I tried to take a picture. I had forgotten to cock the shutter. I cocked it and snapped it just as the second bird hovered out. The firing picked up again and I realized I had also forgotten to remove the dark slide protecting the film from accidental exposure. I had yet to make a picture! This was not the first time I had used a Graphic, nor the first that I had made such mistakes, but now something about my situation seemed hilarious. I laughed aloud.

Then, a moment of near calm. The shooting tapered off to single shots. From higher on the hill came the unmistakable cough of a mortar firing. I went prone and counted the seconds until it exploded in the trees well short of the LZ.

The shadow of something big and incredibly fast whizzed overhead and I heard a salvo of rockets unleashed, then the banshee-like howl of an Air Force F-4 Phantom as it climbed up and away.

I shoved the dark slide into a pocket, cocked the shutter, and composed carefully as the third and last chopper touched down and men spilled out and ran past me. I snapped. It was such a perfect composition that I laughed again.

The grunt on the ground nearby rolled over to reload, then looked around to stare at me, pain in his eyes. Then he laughed.

He pointed at my camera, and I dropped it from my face. The front end of the Graphic was bashed in. A ricochet, maybe, though I had felt nothing.

“Hey, PIO! This mean I don’t get my picture in Stars and Stripes?”

I dropped the useless Graphic and fumbled my personal 35 mm Leica III C from an ammo pouch on my belt. It was older than the Graphic—so old that before each exposure I had to wind the film with four turns of a knob. But it was a Leica, and it worked perfectly—my treasure. Using it was simple, second nature. I crawled forward and pulled myself up into a crouch. I braced myself against a tree. A noncom got up, started moving guys around, organizing a perimeter. I began taking photos, moving about to get different angles.

Gradually I realized that things would probably work out for me. This was now my job, and I knew I could do it.

This War Horse reflection was written by Marvin J. Wolf, edited by Kristin Davis, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Abbie Bennett wrote the headlines.

All photos taken with a Nikon F with various lenses, from 28mm to 200mm. Black and white film was TRI-X; color was Kodachrome 25 to 64.

Marvin J. Wolf served 13 years on active duty with the U.S. Army, including eight years as a commissioned officer. He was one of only 60 enlisted and warrant officers to receive a direct appointment to the officer ranks while serving in Vietnam. Wolf has authored more than 20 books, including three about the Vietnam War: “They Were Soldiers,” “Abandoned In Hell,” and “Buddha’s Child.” He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his adult daughter and a neurotic, five-pound Chihuahua.

In addition to many safe, beneficial dietary supplements on store shelves, innocent purchasers can end up with some products that contain illegal substances, some of which may be identified right on the label and some that are fraudulently marketed as “dietary supplements.”

Illegal ingredients have no place in health and wellness regimens, and we are united in our goal to clean up the market.

In a 2019 survey among military service members, 74% reported using at least one dietary supplement per week. Among those, multivitamins/multiminerals were the most commonly used (45%), followed by combination products (44%). It is likely the use of dietary supplements by service members and civilians is even greater today.

Regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, dietary supplements are recognized as a class of goods intended to supplement the diet; they cannot be represented as conventional food or the sole item of a diet or meal; and they can come in a variety of forms, such as pills, powders, capsules, softgels, gummies or liquids.

Conscientious manufacturers rigorously follow the law. However, there’s a “dark side” to the ever-growing industry, with some companies wanting to pass off illegal products as “dietary supplements.”

These include anabolic steroids targeting bodybuilders; analogues of prescription drugs, like Viagra, that are sold as “all natural” sexual enhancements; and substances that have never been approved for any medicinal use in the U.S., such as those bearing names like andarine (and other Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators, or SARMs), galantamine, tianeptine and DMAA (1,3 dimethylamylamine).

Tianeptine, which even goes by the nickname “gas station heroin,” can lead to serious side effects, including death. Yet it has been found on dietary supplement labels.

Military personnel and athletes can be misled by claims that these products, some of which are even marketed specifically to troops, are supplements. Meanwhile, these demographics may discover firsthand why these ingredients are considered unsafe.

To safeguard against nefarious practices, here are some steps to identify and avoid illegal products:

• The FDA publishes an online directory of ingredients against which the agency has already taken action. Be sure to read why an ingredient is listed there. If it’s subject to a warning letter for safety reasons, or it has been determined not to be a legal ingredient, it’s best to avoid any products that contain it.
• For the military community, Operation Supplement Safety is an evidence-based program available to educate troops on this topic. There is also Department of Defense Instruction 6130.06: Use of Dietary Supplements in the DOD. These tools can help service members identify and avoid suspect ingredients.
• Look for supplements that have been certified by well-established third-party programs and carry approval seals by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), Informed Choice/Sport, Banned Substances Control Group (BSCG) or the United States Pharmacopeia (USP).
• Other useful ingredient information can be found via Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets published by The National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). This resource will help determine, when purchasing a dietary supplement, what the intended effects are and whether there are any side effects.
• Talk to a trusted healthcare practitioner about products. A doctor, dietitian or pharmacist can help identify dietary supplements to meet specific health goals. That person from the gym touting a “magic pill” without any medical or nutrition credentials is probably not keeping your health in mind.

The best advice, meanwhile, is to buy supplements only from reputable vendors — whether actual stores or online websites. Would you buy a watch from a guy in an alley or a designer purse from a sidewalk display? Would you have dental surgery or a broken bone reset by someone operating out of a garage?

We can’t stress this enough. Stop buying health products at gas stations, truck stops and “head shops.” If you wouldn’t buy other health care products from that vendor, why would you trust them with your dietary supplements?

Purchasing from stores or websites advertising products as “barely legal,” “not available anywhere else,” “better than prescription drugs” or “research chemicals” is playing with fire.

Remember, you are responsible for what you put in your body. And if the animal at the end of the leash has stripes and growls like a tiger, it’s probably not a dog.

Andrea T. Lindsey is the director of Operation Supplement Safety and a senior nutrition scientist with the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP), Department of Military and Emergency Medicine, F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University; and contractor at Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.

Steve Mister is the president and CEO of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the leading trade association representing dietary supplement manufacturers.

Disclaimer: Opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University or DOD. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or policies of the HJF. The authors have no relevant financial interests, activities, relationships, and/or affiliations to disclose. Mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations does not imply DOD or government endorsement.

Having said that, the members of our military must live in the society they serve, and be enticed to serve in the all-volunteer force. Thus, financial considerations, whether they be free college, free medical care, pay, bonuses, or retirement plans, all come into the mix when deciding to both join the military and remain in it.

Opinion: Fast food or the military? Recruiting solutions overlook the obvious

One of the most important, albeit at the time controversial, changes to military compensation has been the use of the Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP, as part of the Blended Retirement System. Allowing service members to hold TSP accounts ushered in change for how they saved for retirement. Rather than serve 20 years to receive a pension, service members could start saving for retirement well before, joining many other Americans who save through defined contribution accounts. Recent reports show a surprisingly high enrollment rate in TSPs, with nearly 85% of active-duty service members in the Blended Retirement System enrolled.

Despite the high enrollment numbers, the actual amounts invested remain low, at about $14,500 per account. Raising this amount should be in the express interest of Congress and military leadership, not only to increase our service members’ financial security but also to help ease our recruiting crisis.

There are three reasons why service members have stashed so little in their TSP accounts: First, their paychecks are generally small, especially among junior enlisted ranks; second, they are not eligible for the full government match until they reach two years of service; and three, the 5% government match contribution is simply not enough to create a retirement nest egg.

Over a four-year period, a junior enlisted soldier will go from making $2,261 per month as an E-2 with less than two years of service to $2,918 per month as an E-4 approaching four years of service. The table below shows how much wealth they can create in the current plan, assuming they make the 5% contribution into the Roth TSP and invest it in the C Fund at a 7.2% rate of return over 40 years.

While the IRS has a $23,000 limit for employee-only contributions and a $69,000 limit in combined employee/employer contributions, this service member falls far short of what is legally permissible. Additionally, not all service members take advantage of the TSP. We still have roughtly 15% of the force in the blended system not contributing.

While our junior enlisted may be low on savings at this point in their careers, they are rich in time and in a very low tax bracket, allowing their contributions to grow exponentially, potentially tax-free, over the decades.

So, why talk about this now? Because Congress is setting its sights on today’s recruiting crisis and is targeting a significant pay raise for junior enlisted service members. Better than being provided as a straight percentage increase, this raise could be structured in such a way to build wealth, and in doing so, become a shining example of how the private sector could perhaps reform these defined contribution plans.

This proposal could proceed in four parts: auto-enrolling at 8%, increasing the government match to 8% immediately upon completion of basic training, removing the opt-out provision, and putting both the military members and the government’s contribution into the Roth TSP.

If these steps were taken, the service member would have about $317,000 in retirement savings over the same four decades of growth, as the table below demonstrates.

Of course, mandatory enrollment in the TSP would come with a trade-off. Service members would have less disposable income each month, as a portion of their pay would be automatically diverted to their retirement account. This could reduce their spending power and affect quality of life in the short-term. However, this trade-off could be mitigated with the current pay raise goal.

Under the guidelines of, say, a 15% raise, the additional funds could be split, with 7% being allocated to the new immediate and higher government match (7% plus existing 1%) and the remaining 8% to mitigate the effect of the higher auto-enrollment and dismantling of the opt-out provision. Finally, making the entire contribution to the Roth TSP will potentially save service members tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, when they retire.

Taking these steps would have a tremendous effect on wealth creation. The table below shows that if this junior enlisted soldier contributes an additional $3,700 over their first four years, which is the difference between the current 5% and proposed 8% auto-enrollment amount, they would wind up with an additional $154,000 at retirement, all potentially tax-free.

The trade-off between the TSP and the pay raise is not a zero-sum game. Both are important components of the compensation package for service members, and both have positive effects on their financial well-being and morale. However, given that it is possible to have a much larger pay raise than proposed, coupled with the desire to build wealth amongst our junior enlisted, it is time to reconsider the balance between the two.

Increasing the auto-enrollment to 8%, raising the match to 8% and enabling it to start upon graduation from basic training, eliminating the opt-out provision, and depositing the contributions into the Roth TSP are fair steps to ensure every service member has a secure and comfortable path to wealth.

And, as an added bonus, it would make the military more competitive with the private sector, helping to ease recruiting challenges.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

And yet, I came to realize that one type of power often stood alone and, in many ways, was more important than all the rest. Ironically, it was also the least tangible or physical. Its dimensions cannot by measured by a micrometer, or its existence weighed on any scale. Indeed, its strength lies in the fact that it is deeply emotional, psychological, and highly personal.

This vital form of intangible power originates from the thoughtful, deliberate, and persistent creation of relationships that lead to partnerships, and this intentional effort is irreplaceable for advancing and protecting U.S. national security interests. The history of special operations in the U.S. is replete with examples that demonstrate how vital this can be, and I offer two specific examples that are illuminating and instructive.

As a very young Army Special Forces officer in the 1980′s oriented on the Pacific region, my colleagues and I frequently deployed to train with the Philippine Scout Rangers, the Philippine Marines, and other formations of their armed forces. This cultivated a broad network of strong friendships that flourished on both sides for decades. When relations between the U.S. and the Philippines significantly dwindled after 1991 because of the closure of Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base as U.S. installations, the American-Philippines relationship deteriorated even more sharply during the six years President Duterte was in office. And yet, the personal bonds of friendship and shared experiences between U.S. special operations forces and the Armed Forces of the Philippines endured, however informally. Subsequently, in 2014 when the Islamic State dramatically emerged to threaten the Philippines, this enduring informal network of American special operators and Philippine military personnel became indispensable in combating this threat by enabling a very rapid renewal of a strong and effective operational partnership. This was most vividly demonstrated during the battle for Marawi City in Mindanao, and ultimately enabled the Philippines to defeat ISIS. Strong relationships continue to pay dividends today to enable an ever-stronger strategic partnership between the U.S. and the Philippines in their combined efforts to contest China, which blasted water cannons at Philippine vessels and rammed one carrying Philippine Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Romeo Brawner in December 2023.

Another powerful example flows from the counter-ISIS fight in Iraq and Syria. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, special operations personnel spent years in combat alongside both the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi special operators combating insurgents and Al-Qaeda networks. This led to deep personal bonds of trust and affection across these forces that endured for years and remained intact long after the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011. Then, in 2014 when ISIS suddenly emerged to seize the city of Mosul and begin marching toward Baghdad, the hasty redeployment of American special operations forces into Iraq quickly became operationally and strategically effective because of the enduring relationships between these forces, despite years of physical separation. Both the Peshmerga and Iraqi operators welcomed their American counterparts with open arms, and neither side had to waste time in developing trust or having to learn about what each side had to contribute to the fight. Instead, all were able to join forces rapidly and effectively in a committed partnership that endures to this day.

These examples illustrate how strategically irreplaceable these deeply committed relationships can be, and how they can blossom into strategic partnerships. The special operations community always appreciates that such relationships in another land require long-term investments of time, demonstrated reliability, and persistent presence whenever possible. Doing so, simply put, is part of SOF’s “DNA.”

Just as importantly, these SOF practices can provide invaluable advantages, opportunities, and outcomes for more than just U.S. military goals. For decades, U.S. SOF has deliberately invested in consistent integration and collaboration with many other U.S. agencies and departments, ranging from intelligence agencies to the State Department and its foreign service, and beyond. Today, a vast network of personal relationships persists between U.S. SOF and dozens of U.S. interagency partner organizations. In many cases, these relationships were initiated during deployments in combat environments over the past two decades. Most importantly, just as this practice enabled U.S. SOF to develop strategic partnerships with global actors, so has this practice with other agencies fostered genuine operational and strategic partnerships that directly enable both U.S. SOF, and these civilian agencies, to become far more effective.

Today, the entire U.S. military is a well-resourced and highly skilled enterprise. Amidst a world marked by escalating mistrust, instability and the proliferation of violence sponsored by both nation-states and extremists, all military branches are now urgently seeking new ways to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic advantages. Accordingly, the old saying that protecting America and her interests requires harnessing “all instruments of national power” is even more true than ever before.

U.S. special operations forces contribute to all these efforts in numerous ways. However, its enduring strength lies in its time-proven ability, skill, and enthusiasm for deliberately cultivating long-term and deep relationships. By intentionally nourishing these relationships, the special operations community aims to evolve them toward someday becoming genuine operational and strategic partnerships. In so doing, U.S. SOF enhances and enriches its contribution to all of America’s efforts to deter aggression, or should those efforts fail, to swiftly and decisively respond to threats, protect national interests and promote stability worldwide.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, enlisted in 1982, attended Army Officer Candidate School and later volunteered for U.S. Army Special Forces. Throughout his 38-year career, he served in many special operations and interagency roles, participating in dozens of contingency and combat operations abroad. His final assignment was Director of Strategic Operational Planning at the National Counterterrorism Center. Today, he works as the strategic advisor and senior vice president for CACI International, a defense and technology company that provides significant capabilities and assistance for U.S. SOF and other national security needs.

I am far from the only victim. The Departments of Veterans Affairs is overwhelmingly failing to care for those who served in nuclear-related operations, from U.S. nuclear testing to environmental cleanup, and now Congress is racing the clock to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) before it expires June 10. As the custodian of our national defense, Congress has a responsibility to care for the Americans, veterans and civilians alike, who risked life and limb to protect our fellow countrymen.

As the National Commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans, I work with veterans whose lives were forever changed by exposure to radiation and other toxins. One thing that has remained stagnant since I began this advocacy 18 years ago is that the path to financial help is staggeringly difficult. Many veterans petition the VA for over a decade before receiving compensation. Even then, success is far from certain: from August 2022 to August 2023, the VA reportedly rejected 86% of radiation-related claims.

Radiation exposure is a triple whammy: the effects of radiation can take decades to appear, leaving aging veterans too sick to work, all while medical expenses are rising. Financial compensation through RECA, which comes in one lump sum, is often the difference between a veteran and their family going bankrupt or becoming homeless, and financial stability.

The VA’s failure to provide timely benefits makes RECA a critical lifeline for many veterans. Created in 1990 to provide compensation to those sickened by U.S. nuclear tests and administered through the Department of Justice, RECA includes benefits for “onsite participants” of U.S. nuclear testing sites, some populations who lived downwind of test sites, and select uranium workers.

RECA has helped atomic veterans like Mike Cobb, from California. Cobb witnessed 21 nuclear tests at the Pacific Proving Grounds as part of Operation Dominic. He was one of the few men in his unit equipped with protective gear – and even then, it was inadequate: just goggles. Sixty years later, Cobb was diagnosed with bladder cancer, an illness associated with radiation exposure and successfully received compensation through RECA.

RECA is an efficient option for atomic veterans who need help now. The last above-ground nuclear tests in the United States were in 1962, meaning the youngest on-site participants are nearing their 80s. They do not have decades to wait for the VA to approve their claim. But a veteran applying for RECA can have help in hand in just six to twelve months. RECA includes fewer benefits than the VA, but is much simpler to navigate and has been a godsend to many veterans.

As of May 1, $2.6 billion has reached over 41,000 claimants through the RECA program. To put this number in perspective, the U.S. plans to spend approximately $50 billion per year to maintain its nuclear forces over the next decade — almost 20 times the historical cost of RECA.

But RECA is in jeopardy. If it is allowed to expire in June, atomic veterans will be left without a meaningful path to timely compensation.

For decades, Congress has ignored the many communities that have been excluded from RECA, like the “downwinders” of the Trinity Test, the first-ever nuclear weapons test in New Mexico. On March 7, the Senate voted 69-30 to reauthorize RECA and finally include some of these communities that were left out. The bill isn’t perfect – for one, it doesn’t include cleanup veterans like myself, who were sent in after the nuclear tests. But it is critically important for atomic veterans that RECA be expanded, and not be allowed to expire.

I often hear from struggling veterans that they fear the government is simply waiting for them to die. It doesn’t have to be this way. Extending and expanding RECA can give atomic veterans the gift of time, allowing them to focus on their health and their families, rather than fighting a bureaucratic behemoth for their due. We owe them that much.

Keith Kiefer is an Enewetak radiological cleanup veteran and the national commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans.

With limited expense comes limited options. Limited options can come at a staggering personal price, especially for women in service. And women’s health is critical to military recruitment, retention and our nation’s readiness to fight.

In 2020, after a long infertility journey, my husband and I were overjoyed to see our daughter’s heartbeat on the screen. My maternity care was initially directed to the civilian clinic of my choice, due to the lack of obstetric care on base. However, that changed when I relocated for my next assignment and my care was directed to my local military treatment facility. I was skeptical. I had heard anecdotal stories of poor maternal care on military installations, particularly the one I was assigned.

I requested a referral to a civilian practice during my first appointment but was informed that as an active duty service member, I could not be seen off-installation. Had I been the wife of a service member, I could have enrolled in Tricare Select to see an in-network obstetrician of my choice. But by law, active duty members must enroll in Tricare Prime, and Prime must direct referrals to local military installations when care there is available. I was stuck.

Unfortunately, I started experiencing worsening complications over several weeks — spotting, then bleeding, then passing clots — all dismissed as “normal” pregnancy symptoms. At 17 weeks, after waking up in soaked bedding, my trip to the base emergency room ended with me being kicked out. The ER doctor neither took my concerns seriously nor followed medical protocol to test for amniotic fluid. On follow-up, the OB counseled me against crying wolf and even wrote in my record that my water did not break — without ever conducting an exam.

Eight days later, my husband drove me an hour away to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as I bled through my pants. The OB team there rushed down to the ER and immediately found there was zero amniotic fluid around my daughter. My water had broken a week prior. Three days shy of 20 weeks, her cord prolapsed, and I was given no choice but to wait for the pressure on the cord to claim her life.

I felt the moment she died. I didn’t need doctors to check, but they did. Her heart was silent.

After 17 hours of labor, I delivered my perfect little girl, Liliana. Her life had been claimed, in part, by delayed and inadequate care. The Tricare Prime system which held me hostage to limited options became complicit in her death. I will forever wonder if getting a referral off-installation could have altered the outcome — if other physicians or better equipment would have detected the placental abruption in time to give her a fighting chance.

Unfortunately, my experience is not an anomaly. Multiple studies indicate there is a larger number of obstetric complications at military hospitals compared to civilian care. Tricare’s own surveys consistently show dissatisfaction with on-base obstetric care, and less than half of 2,000 postpartum women would not be willing to recommend a military hospital to family or friends.

With over 222,000 women in active service (nearly 18% of the force) and around 12,000 babies born each year to active duty women, the implication of these studies is critical, given the confinement of obstetric care to the base.

Military hospitals have the “right of first refusal” (ROFR), which allows them to decide whether to treat a patient or send them to an in-network Tricare provider instead. While the policy can enhance the military medical education program, hone military providers’ skills, optimize clinics and contain health care costs, it does not prioritize women’s care and denies active duty women options for care.

In fact, the military hospital’s purpose is to ensure active duty readiness for military contingency operations, and Tricare Prime’s purpose is to support the operation of the military hospital. This system makes sense for most active duty medical care, but does it align with the unique needs of obstetric care?

Pregnant active duty women are automatically placed on limited duty and unable to deploy. Arguably, obstetric care has little to do with readiness for military contingency operations. Certainly, exceptions exist, such as for women who voluntarily pursue waivers to continue flying. In these cases, obstetric care should remain under the care of the military hospital. This is fitting to their personal choice and the military hospital’s purpose. However, given that active duty women have higher risks of preterm labor, intrauterine fetal death, and postpartum hemorrhage, women should otherwise have the autonomy to choose the obstetric care setting that best suits their needs.

Women comprise the fastest-growing demographic in the DOD and represent a higher percentage of the recruitable population, so reproductive healthcare is critical to recruitment and retention. In fact, the federally funded think tank Rand Corp. recommends addressing miscarriage rates among active duty women and improving standards of care to better meet women’s health care needs.

Yet evidence of substandard obstetric care and gaps in research on women’s health is a significant bulwark to overcome. Until such inadequacies are fully addressed, women in service should have more options for their obstetric care.

Fortunately, Tricare referral management already has a procedure to waive the ROFR. I have successfully received this waiver of ROFR for my subsequent pregnancies due to the circumstances of my first. However, a woman should not have to first lose a child for her referral request to be granted.

The ROFR waiver should be accessible and available without question to any woman in service who requests a referral off-installation for her obstetric care. When a woman signs up to defend her country’s freedoms, she should not be sacrificing her own freedom in pregnancy care decisions. Until such changes are made, the consequences of the current military health system and the autonomy forfeiture it forces can have tragic consequences, as I am all too familiar.

Amanda Rebhi is an active duty major in the U.S. Air Force, a 2024 strategic communication fellow at George Mason University and Liliana’s mother. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Air Force or DOD.

In stark contrast to the FY2022 request — which dedicated an entire section to the subject — the FY2025 budget mentions extremism in the ranks only once, alongside other personnel issues such as discrimination and sexual harassment.

However, the threat of extremism cannot be shelved as just another personnel issue. As extremism in the ranks continues to rear its head, we must resuscitate calls for an Office for Countering Extremism within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense.

Since Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s February 2021 stand-down, DOD made strides in countering extremism in the ranks. Updated pre-enlistment screening questionnaires inquire about applicants’ membership in racist organizations and previous participation in violent acts.

The 2021 revision of DOD Instruction 1325.06 clarified the scope of “active participation” and what might qualify as “extremist activities.” The DOD Pre-Separation Counseling Resource Guide now also includes specific guidance on helping veterans guard against extremist organizations’ recruitment attempts.

Still, the challenge of extremism in the ranks endures. As evidenced by a November 2023 report published by the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General, DOD investigated 183 distinct allegations of extremist activity among military personnel that year, 108 of which necessitated a full investigation.

Another 2023 report from the Department of the Army revealed that 10% of soldiers surveyed did not identify the use of force, violence, or unlawful means to deprive individuals of their Constitutional rights as an extremist activity. This same report indicated that more than 20% of soldiers did not believe donating money to an organization advocating the racial superiority of one group over another was prohibited behavior.

The evidence suggests that domestic violent extremist ideas and behaviors still exist within the military. However, as DOD and the services consider how to navigate the challenge, there is no centralized cross-service oversight body to specifically prevent and address extremism in the ranks.

Individual services are primarily responsible for how they investigate allegations and implement DOD counter-extremism training. As such, discussions of extremism in the ranks then become the responsibility of senior Pentagon and military department leadership, whose responsibilities range far beyond personnel and readiness. Understandably, DOD is experiencing counter-extremism fatigue.

In 2021, the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act FY2022 (H.R. 4350) proposed an Office for Countering Extremism couched within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Had it been established, the office would have been headed by a director whose duties would include oversight of all policy related to countering extremism in the armed services.

Trainings would have included topics such as identifying extremism and radicalization, media literacy training, and whistleblower protections. Administratively, the Office for Countering Extremism would have integrated law enforcement, security organizations, insider threat programs, and civilian experts to ensure comprehensive and dynamic treatment of the threat of extremism.

Unfortunately, there is little consensus in Congress on the extent of extremism in the ranks and even less regarding how resources ought to be allocated to address the issue — if resources should be allocated at all.

To be sure, extremism in the ranks is rare. Of the 183 aforementioned allegations, just 17 were punished under Article 15 of UCMJ and only two cases warranted a court-martial. Given that fact, two contradictory views emerge. On the one hand, some argue that because extremism in the ranks is rare, it is not worth expending finite DOD resources. Others argue that even a small number of extremist incidents has a negative impact on military readiness, necessitating a robust response.

In 2022, the Senate Armed Services Committee called for the Defense Department to discontinue its efforts to counter extremism, describing these initiatives as “an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.” Partisan rifts have only heightened this conflict. While Republicans have opposed even minor initiatives to address extremism in the ranks, criticizing these efforts as overreach, some Democrats have been rightly criticized of over-representing the threat of extremism in the ranks.

The Biden administration has failed to push back against congressional resistance and been unable to garner bipartisan support for countering extremism. The administration itself has even expressed apprehension about proposed countermeasures. In its statement on H.R. 4350, the Biden administration deemed the Office for Countering Extremism to impose “onerous and overly specific training and data collection requirements.”

To be sure, establishing a new oversight body is no small feat. However, failing to establish the office is a missed opportunity that cannot be overstated. The effort would have facilitated cross-service tracking of emerging threats, mandated data collection on the specific nature of extremist activities, and ensured information sharing between services to hone approaches to countering extremism.

Creating a collaborative oversight body that involved academics, experts, and researchers in establishing DOD training protocols could have also facilitated more creative approaches for addressing extremism.

For instance, radicalization researchers increasingly highlight the utility of former extremists intervening during the early stages of radicalization. Enlisting deradicalized extremists — especially those with military backgrounds — to speak about their radicalization process and recruitment paints a far richer picture of the lure of extremism than scripted DOD warnings to veterans.

Incorporating these veterans into pre-separation counseling on extremist recruitment could be impactful and effective. The Office for Countering Extremism would have bridged institutional and individual approaches to preventing radicalization.

As the FY2025 budget request indicates, DOD has turned its attention toward the national nuclear enterprise, space capabilities, and modernization priorities. With regard to personnel, suicide and sexual assault prevention initiatives are receiving long overdue attention. Still, disregarding the threat of extremism in the ranks at this juncture is a missed opportunity. The 183 allegations of extremist activity in 2023 is a 125% increase from the previous year.

Substantiated instances of extremist activity in the military are exceptionally rare. The threat posed by extremism in the ranks, however, is that it represents a highly concerning violation of the oath of office sworn by all service members to support and defend the Constitution.

Notably, almost 43% of extremist incidents in 2023 were service members advocating the overthrow of the U.S. Government by unlawful means. Just a few individuals espousing anti-government and anti-authority sentiment violates the military’s professional ethos, the social force which binds the armed services to abide by a common moral code. At its crux, extremism weakens this professional ethos and threatens the moral identity of the military. Extremism in the ranks — regardless of its rarity — is corrosive to the core of the military profession.

It is clear that extremism in the ranks still poses a challenge, and we are in desperate need of an administrative nerve center capable of addressing it. An Office for Countering Extremism would be a good place to start.

Samantha Olson is the Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Intern for the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington. She is also currently an M.A. candidate in Security Studies at Georgetown University.

These same good intentions can lead to senior leadership “bulldozer parenting” our soldiers, and the troubled Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) implementation is an example of that.

The legacy Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) was designed based on a Cold War era assumption that ground combat was a thing of the past, an illusion that left many soldiers physically unprepared for what they faced during the Global War on Terror. The initial version of the ACFT, to address lessons learned in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, represented a significant challenge for the force.

Predictably, the raised expectations were met with an initial wave of failures. Despite leg tucks being in training doctrine for over a decade, initial ACFT trials showed that 60% of women and 8% of men failed to complete one repetition. Army data later revealed that seven months into the ACFT implementation these failure rates had dropped to 22% of women and 2% of men. That same data also indicated that soldiers failed the run at an even higher rate, 22% of women and 5% of men, despite the passing standard getting easier compared to the APFT for most demographics.

One way to fix this would have been to give soldiers time and resources to rise to the challenge. Instead, under significant political pressure, the Army chose to remove the leg tuck, and to rewrite score charts to guarantee most soldiers passed.

This also sent a clear message that future attempts to raise standards would be canceled if soldiers failed frequently enough. This was the opposite of what the ACFT was designed to address — a need for tougher training and higher standards for a new era of combat.

The test began as a criterion-referenced assessment with Army-wide field tests in 2018, meaning the standards were based on predictable demands stemming from combat operations or one’s occupation, though officials deliberately set minimum passing scores lower than these demands. After these adjustments it became a norm-referenced assessment, meaning scores were adjusted to reflect average performance levels.

Remember, without any actual changes to training or policy these were the same performance levels that leaders identified as insufficient when they first directed the ACFT’s development. Also, since this was a pilot study, soldiers had little incentive to push themselves in the test. Evaluators collected the data when there were no consequences for poor performance or rewards for high performance.

Despite the congressionally mandated RAND Corporation report finding that the ACFT passing scores were designed to be easier than real-life tasks facing soldiers, and observing that it was already improving Army fitness culture, leaders were extremely concerned with initial pass rates.

The Army challenged the force with a new fitness standard, yet despite widespread improvement as units and individuals adjusted their training, the Army rewrote the score charts to ensure the test would be easier to pass. The RAND study even observed that very few soldiers had even had a second opportunity to test at the time revisions were made, but those who had showed significant improvement.

If the test was introduced to address deficiencies in fitness, how is it acceptable to base the standards on current performance? The Army introduced more relevant components of fitness, and then it promptly bulldozed those standards to save soldiers from struggling.

So what are we left with?

While higher scores remain challenging, passing requires a mere 10 pushups, a 22-minute 2-mile run (for the fastest demographics), and a sprint-drag-carry that can be walked. If you can’t run due to injury, the row standard is so slow it would put you in the bottom 5% of competitive 10-year-olds. This is particularly concerning since the updated policies mean that a soldier medically disqualified from participating in every event of the test could be deployable based on the row alone.

Noting the newly lower standards, Congress directed the Army to establish higher passing scores for combat roles. Previous iterations of the ACFT did exactly that, establishing a single baseline Army standard, but holding more physically demanding jobs to higher requirements. For example, in 2020, the passing 2-mile run time for male and female soldiers between 17 and 21 was 21 minutes. By comparison, today the passing run time is 22 minutes for male soldiers between 17 and 21, and 23 minutes and 22 seconds for female soldiers in that age bracket. The passing score for run times was not increased because they were unrealistic, they were changed because of outcry when people found them challenging.

There must be a balance. The Army has to take care of its people, but resilience is not developed in resilience classes — those lessons matter, but actual growth comes from applying lessons learned through hardship. Finding yourself in combat without the requisite resilience — physical, mental and spiritual — has consequences far beyond failing a fitness test.

The Army can knock down obstacles at home, and that might make people happy for now, but we have a responsibility to our soldiers to ensure we don’t send them into harm’s way unprepared. The Army can continue its current path, lowering the bar until everyone can step over it. Or it can set expectations higher and watch people rise to meet them.

Alex Morrow is an Army Reserve officer with experience working in several military human performance programs for the Army and the Space Force. He hosts the MOPs & MOEs podcast, which can also be found on Instagram at @mops_n_moes. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of any organizations he is affiliated with He can be reached at alex@mopsnmoes.com.

However, it’s egregious to think that these same men and women who have been injured in service to our nation might have to struggle and claw through bureaucratic red tape just to access the resources and technology they now require to achieve this independence. Those who stood in harm’s way for us — and in doing so lost their ability to walk — deserve every ounce of our help.

That’s why I introduced the Veterans Spinal Trauma Access to New Devices (Veterans STAND) Act, which requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to offer annual health evaluations of paralyzed veterans, identify those who may be eligible for FDA-approved assistance devices — powered exoskeletons, for example — under existing and emerging VA clinical guidance, and ensure those veterans are actually able to receive these technologies in a timely, reliable manner.

I announced this legislation in November 2023 along with House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Mike Bost, R-Ill., Ranking Member of the Health Subcommittee Julia Brownley, D-Calif., and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., because the health and success of our veterans is a priority that transcends party lines.

The fact is, we are systematically failing those paralyzed from service if they are being denied expeditious access to essential technology. The few veterans who have received these devices through the VA have only been able to do so following extreme self-advocacy, months of delays, and often hundreds of miles of travel to find a VA doctor and facility willing to meet their needs.

These barriers exist despite the VA’s own research, which has shown the tremendous physical and mental health benefits these technologies afford for veterans with spinal cord injuries and disorders, or SCI/D.

We must do better as individuals, as a legislature, and as a nation to honor the brave service members who volunteered in our place to make unparalleled sacrifices without guarantee of their own safety. When innovation has the potential to grant SCI/D veterans a new lease on life, Congress has the responsibility to bridge that gap and ensure VA is doing everything it can in service to those who served.

According to the VA, there are approximately 42,000 veterans with spinal cord injuries in the U.S., only 27,000 of whom receive VA annual care through the VA SCI/D network.

Evidently, there’s ample room for improvement at the VA to extend vital assistance to paralyzed veterans, which is why this legislation has been endorsed by Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America — the two largest organizations dedicated to serving SCI/D Veterans — and the Reserve Organization of America, the only operation solely dedicated to supporting the Reserve components and their critical role in our nation’s defense.

Demand can’t be met with apathy or sluggishness. Congress must do its part to ensure that VA acts swiftly and pragmatically on behalf of the greatest among us by advancing the bipartisan Veterans STAND Act.

The bottom line is this — technology is ready to serve those who served us. Now it’s time to do our part and complete this critical mission.

Jack Bergman serves as Representative for Michigan’s First Congressional District. Bergman served for 40 years in the United States Marine Corps, retiring in 2009 at the rank of Lieutenant General.

In the intelligence community, structured analytical techniques provide order when navigating elusive questions such as assessing future conflict. One such technique, red team analysis, uses an enemy-based approach as a logical starting point for analysts disseminating intelligence to military customers.

Using this approach allows analysts to view topics from an adversary’s perspective and act on foreign stimuli through assessing personal, cultural, and organizational attributes. Stepping into the first-person perspective of Chinese President Xi indicates that he respects the ancient civilization from which China evolved and harbors a lifelong disdain for Western imperialism and influence.

Born in 1953, President Xi grew up in the immediate aftermath of the “century of humiliation,” now defined by century-long objectives of achieving previously held international dominance by the year 2049. Commonly known as the “Chinese Dream,” this pursuit of rejuvenation is marked by five-year plans that outline short-term goals.

The recent five-year plan (2016-20), for example, broadcasted innovation in technology and energy startup companies, according to a 2017 article published in the Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International. Modern economic, military, and political competition of the United States exasperate the five-year plans and long-term objectives of global supremacy that are overarching cultural and organizational themes of President Xi’s generation.

Red team analysis indicates that China will not interrupt century-long goals to engage in kinetic conflict, explaining why China relies on routine hybrid warfare strategies and tactics. In 2023, despite red team analysis outputs, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency communicated that the intelligence community had valuable information related to Chinese intent to invade Taiwan by 2027.

President Xi did not deny this assertion, however, citing he had no set timeline for invading Taiwan. Red team analysis presents a doubtful outlook of armed conflict in the near future despite conflicting CIA intelligence.

It is difficult to overstate the utility of red team analysis when assessing the actions of adversaries. Oftentimes, analysts can succumb to the pitfall of assigning the same values, motives, and attributes of friendly actors to foreign entities. If analysts were to implement this analytical failure to the outlined scenario, outputs would have overlooked the historical context, long-term objectives, and overarching strategies that form President Xi’s mindset surrounding U.S. relations and emerging war.

For instance, views from within the U.S. fail to recognize vast advancements in personal freedoms afforded to Chinese citizens over the past few decades. (Like much of the rest of the world, COVID-19 restrictions prompted a decrease in personal freedoms that were trending upward in the 2010s.)

By applying personal, cultural, and organizational norms to the scenario, analysts reason that while red team analysis leads one to think armed conflict is likely before or at the end of the century of China’s redemption plan, a few years is too short of a time frame for China to soundly invade Taiwan because the country would have to put aside economic progress.

This factor is especially important considering that China does not need to engage in kinetic operations to successfully degrade the U.S. economy. This assessment, however, merely represents the most likely course of action.

Red team analysis does not deduce every course of action an adversary can take. However, a crucial aspect of red team analysis commonly used in the Department of Defense is deciphering an enemy’s most likely action versus one considered most dangerous.

These distinct courses of action allow customers to plan for both the most expected and most disastrous outcomes of assessed scenarios. Within the context of armed conflict in the South China Sea, commanders of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command must understand each course of action to best posture troop positioning and inform engagements with lawmakers and regional partners.

Certainly, red team analysis points out that conflict is unlikely as an immediate response, but the U.S. must prepare for full-scale war as a worst case, most deadly possibility. While this preparation should be taken seriously by all soldiers, it is by no means an indication of inevitable conflict.

Jacob T. Scheidemann is a transitioning Army officer and intelligence management graduate student who will be working as an all-source intelligence analyst upon release from active-duty. Scheidemann previously served in intelligence leadership roles supporting INDOPACOM and CENTCOM.

Caught amid the morass of solutions, it appears that the services have been overlooking the most obvious solution: raising the pay of junior enlisted. Contrasting what an Army E-3 or E-4 earns in the military with pay earned in the fast food industry in California reveals this to be true.

As detailed in my newly published analysis, the need for a large pay increase among the E-1 to E-4 pay grades is clear when one considers the new fast food minimum wage in California. Starting April 1, most fast food workers in the state will be paid a minimum of $20 per hour.

Factor in this wage increase, couple it with free meals (valued at $1,193 per year) provided during shifts, and subtract the cost of medical insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act (valued at $2,256 per year) and a 19-year-old working at a Los Angeles, California-area McDonald’s would earn roughly $40,537 per year.

Now, compare that to the earnings of an Army E-3 with less than two years of service. Starting with base pay, this soldier would earn about $2,377.50 per month, or $28,530 per year. Add in benefits, such as an automatic 1% match on their Thrift Savings Plan account and Basic Allowance for Subsistence pay, while keeping medical costs steady at zero, and the Army E-3 earns $34,338 per year. In other words, the 19-year-old McDonald’s employee would earn about 18% more than the Army E-3.

While the gap narrows if we were to compare a 21-year-old McDonald’s employee with a 21-year-old Army E-4, it still pays less to serve. The implications of this are clear: If it pays less to serve, one may be less inclined to join the military, at least from an economic standpoint.

As a note of caution, comparing civilian and military pay is an inexact science to say the least. The range of benefits that a service member receives differs substantially, in some cases, from what a civilian may receive. That said, in the measure that often matters most and may be the most comprehensible to recruits — cash compensation — the military is falling behind entry-level private sector wages in its largest recruiting market of California.

Given this, what are our service chiefs to do? They should call for a significant wage increase for our junior enlisted, along the lines of 20%. This should be directed to service members in the E-1 to E-4 pay grades, with raises distributed to the E-5 to E-9 pay grades as appropriate.

While 20% seems like a hefty sum, it is far from unprecedented. In the early 1980s, the annual military pay raise increased by over 35%. And, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, raises were targeted to specific pay grades. Last summer, House appropriators also signaled their willingness to provide such an increase in their efforts to rewrite pay tables for the benefit of junior enlisted service members.

Already, we are seeing what failures in military recruiting can do to force structure. While the Army’s recent cuts are the right move, they are a harbinger of what’s to come if the military doesn’t get its recruiting house in order. Putting recruiting back on track will require attention and action in the area where such efforts are needed most: pay for our junior enlisted.

It’s time for the service chiefs to call for such a pay increase, and for the president and Congress to heed it. The costs and implications of an increase are certainly substantial, no less because of the budget caps currently in place that are restraining the Pentagon’s budget. But, a failure to recruit means a failure to man, and thus a failure to deter and fight. And that would be a disaster for our national security.

Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Ferrari previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

Having been medically rejected three times before ultimately receiving a medical waiver to join the Air National Guard in 2018, I know firsthand how illogical and infuriating this process can be. But, it was through my efforts advising over 400 similarly rejected applicants that I realized that larger-scale change is needed. By my calculations, over 15,000 applicants are medically rejected each year without applying for a waiver, with even more denied at the recruiter’s door or self-selecting out from applying at all. At a time when the military is facing a recruiting crisis, shouldn’t it be doing everything it can to bring in applicants who are ready and willing but currently unable to serve?

More than 15,000 applicants per year rejected without a waiver appeal

How many potential recruits is the military missing out on? According to a 2022 Accession Medical Standards Analysis and Research Activity report, 1.35 million applicants received a physical at MEPS from 2016-2020. Of that population, 13-16% were medically disqualified, yet only 47-66% of disqualified applicants applied for a medical waiver. By my calculations, from 2016-2020, as many as 85,000 applicants were rejected and did not apply for a medical waiver.

Why would an applicant not request a waiver? The answer comes down to incentives — and who actually does the paperwork. For most applicants, recruiters determine whether or not to submit for a waiver review. However, recruiters are evaluated by the total number of recruits they bring in, often based on monthly or yearly quotas. This disincentivizes them from prioritizing applicants who require waivers, which require more work, take more time, and may ultimately result in rejection. Additionally, recruiters are neither medical professionals nor empowered to evaluate an applicant holistically, which, in fact, is the intent of the waiver process. So, recruiters are unfortunately being put in the position of effectively making waiver decisions when they decide not to submit an applicant at all.

Let’s take 2020 as a case study, when the military services saw the following numbers of applicants, disqualifications, and waivers based on AMSARA’s 2022 Annual Report:

• Army: 120,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (16,750), 8,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Navy: 46,300 applicants, 16% disqualified (7,400), 3,100 did not apply for waiver.
• Air Force: 39,500 applicants, 16% disqualified (6,200), 2,500 did not apply for waiver.
• Marine Corps: 42,500 applicants, 14% disqualified (5,700), 1,800 did not apply for waiver.

So, in 2020 alone, 36,000 potential service members were rejected and 16,000 did not apply for a waiver. When you consider the previous four years as well, 192,000 applicants were medically rejected and 85,000 did not apply for a waiver.

It is important to note that these numbers are an underestimation of total applicants, since recruiters often exercise a “pocket veto” that prevents applicants from processing at MEPS or appealing for a waiver. Additionally, these disqualification statistics do not include the increased rate of disqualifications under MHS Genesis, an electronic health records system launched in 2023, which automatically flags civilian medical and prescription records. This forced disclosure of any and all potentially relevant medical records — which may be outdated, inaccurate, and irrelevant to an applicant’s ability to serve — will now cause only more hurdles.

The question remains: how many of these rejected applicants might be able to serve if given the opportunity to apply for a waiver?

Automatically push all applicants for a waiver

In the near term, a simple fix to this problem would be to automatically push all disqualified applicants for a waiver review. This would immediately double the number of applicants receiving waiver reviews and consequently increase the number of waivers approved. It would end the pocket veto of recruiters, who can slow roll or prevent applicants from applying for waivers. And it would give all applicants a chance to be evaluated holistically as to whether the potential risks they pose are outweighed by the value they bring to the military despite their medical conditions.

Waiver approval rates are currently 60-70%. How many of the 85,000 applicants currently rejected without a waiver might receive one if given the opportunity? There is no way to know for sure. But if we assume, for example, that 25% might be waived, the military could have received 21,000 additional recruits in the past five years. While this would not solve the entire military recruitment crisis, this improvement would result in a significant step towards improving the military recruitment crisis and is wholly within the military’s control.

Tailor medical requirements to job requirements

Requiring all applicants to apply for waivers is only a band-aid solution. Given current qualification standards prevent 77% of American youth from being eligible to serve, changing these standards would increase the supply of potential applicants to much more than just 23% of American youth. The long term solution, therefore, is to tailor military medical standards to military roles (i.e. MOS/AFSC). The military already exercises more waiver flexibility for jobs which are not physically demanding, such as chaplains, lawyers, and doctors, and has increased medical requirements for physically demanding jobs, such as fighter pilots and special forces. Why not expand this practice to all career fields?

Today, many military roles such as intelligence, logistics, or cyber, while critically important, are no more physically taxing than their civilian equivalents. Shouldn’t these roles have lower medical barriers to entry? Each Service could grade each MOS/AFSC as high, medium, or low risk from a physical and medical perspective and update standards and waiver recommendations accordingly. Just like applicants are currently waived for a specific branch, in the future they could be waived for specific jobs. If they wanted to switch, their medical status would need to be taken into consideration.

The needs of the military

Some will argue that tailoring medical standards and waiver guidelines is tantamount to “lowering standards.” I agree that not all conditions should be eligible for a waiver and that neither fitness standards nor job requirements be lowered. Deployability should be considered as well, yet deployability for support functions often means working on an established base or even deployment in place. Overall, the point is that medical standards should match the job, not be needlessly strict and standardized.

At the end of the day, the needs of the military come before any individual applicant. But what, exactly, are the needs of the military? Right now, the military needs to recruit thousands more qualified, competent, and fit individuals per year. The military can make simple changes to eligibility right now to open the floodgates of applicants who are already ready and willing to serve. The question remains whether the Department of Defense will choose to do so.

Joe Schuman is an Air National Guard officer and has published multiple articles on military recruitment issues as well as advised over 400 applicants on navigating the military medical waiver process. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Defense. He can be reached at joeschuman1234@gmail.com.

Which country is the greatest threat to the United States? The answer, according to a large proportion of Americans, is clear: China.

Half of all Americans responding to a mid-2023 survey from the Pew Research Center cited China as the biggest risk to the U.S., with Russia trailing in second with 17%. Other surveys, such as from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, show similar findings.

Senior figures in recent U.S. administrations appear to agree with this assessment. In 2020, John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, wrote that Beijing “intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.”

The White House’s current National Defense Strategy is not so alarmist, referring to China as the U.S.’s “pacing challenge” — a reference that, in the words of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, apparently means China has “the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the power to do so.”

As someone who has followed China for over a quarter century, I believe that many observers have overestimated the country’s apparent power. Recent challenges to China’s economy have led some people to reevaluate just how powerful China is. But hurdles to the growth of Chinese power extend far beyond the economic sector — and failing to acknowledge this reality may distort how policymakers and the public view the shift of geopolitical gravity in what was once called “the Chinese century.”

In overestimating China’s comprehensive power, the U.S. risks misallocating resources and attention, directing them toward a threat that is not as imminent as one might otherwise assume.

Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that China is weak or about to collapse. Nor am I making an argument about China’s intentions. But rather, it is time to right-size the American understanding of the country’s comprehensive power. This process includes acknowledging both China’s tremendous accomplishments and its significant challenges. Doing so is, I believe, mission critical as the United States and China seek to put a floor underneath a badly damaged bilateral relationship.

Headline numbers

Why have so many people misjudged China’s power?

One key reason for this misconception is that from a distance, China does indeed appear to be an unstoppable juggernaut. The high-level numbers bedazzle observers: Beijing commands the world’s largest or second-largest economy depending on the type of measurement; it has a rapidly growing military budget and sky-high numbers of graduates in engineering and math; and oversees huge infrastructure projects — laying down nearly 20,000 miles of high-speed rail tracks in less than a dozen years and building bridges at record pace.

But these eye-catching metrics don’t tell a complete story. Look under the hood and you’ll see that China faces a raft of intractable difficulties.

The Chinese economy, which until recently was thought of as unstoppable, is beginning to falter due to deflation, a growing debt-to-gross domestic product ratio and the impact of a real estate crisis.

China’s other challenges

And it isn’t only China’s economy that has been overestimated.

While Beijing has put in considerable effort building its soft power and sending its leadership around the world, China enjoys fewer friends than one might expect, even with its willing trade partners. North Korea, Pakistan, Cambodia and Russia may count China as an important ally, but these relationships are not, I would argue, nearly as strong as those enjoyed by the United States globally. Even in the Asia-Pacific region there is a strong argument to say Washington enjoys greater sway, considering the especially close ties with allies Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Even though Chinese citizens report broad support for the Communist Party, Beijing’s capricious COVID-19 policies paired with an unwillingness to use foreign-made vaccines have dented perceptions of government effectiveness.

Further, China’s population is aging and unbalanced. In 2016, the country of 1.4 billion saw about 18 million births; in 2023, that number dropped to about 9 million. This alarming fall is not only in line with trends toward a shrinking working-age population, but also perhaps indicative of pessimism among Chinese citizens about the country’s future.

And at times, the actions of the Chinese government read like an implicit admission that the domestic situation is not all that rosy. For example, I take it as a sign of concern over systemic risk that China detained a million or more people, as has happened with the Muslim minority in Xinjiang province. Similarly, China’s policing of its internet suggests concerns over collective action by its citizens.

The sweeping anti-corruption campaign Beijing has embarked on, purges of the country’s military and the disappearance of leading business figures all hint at a government seeking to manage significant risk.

I hear many stories from contacts in China about people with money or influence hedging their bets by establishing a foothold outside the country. This aligns with research that has shown that in recent years, on average as much money leaves China via “irregular means” as for foreign direct investment.

A three-dimensional view

The perception of China’s inexorable rise is cultivated by the governing Communist Party, which obsessively seeks to manufacture and control narratives in state media and beyond that show it as all-knowing, farsighted and strategic. And perhaps this argument finds a receptive audience in segments of the United States concerned about its own decline.

It would help explain why a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that about a third of American respondents see the Chinese and American economies as equal and another third see the Chinese economy as stronger. In reality, per capita GDP in the United States is six times that of China.

Of course, there is plenty of danger in predicting China’s collapse. Undoubtedly, the country has seen huge accomplishments since the People’s Republic of China’s founding in 1949: Hundreds of millions of people brought out of poverty, extraordinary economic development and impressive GDP growth over several decades, and growing diplomatic clout. These successes are especially noteworthy given that the People’s Republic of China is less than 75 years old and was in utter turmoil during the disastrous Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when intellectuals were sent to the countryside, schools stopped functioning and chaos reigned. In many cases, China’s successes merit emulation and include important lessons for developing and developed countries alike.

China may well be the “pacing challenge” that many in the U.S. believe. But it also faces significant internal challenges that often go under-recognized in evaluating the country’s comprehensive power.

And as the United States and China seek to steady a rocky relationship, it is imperative that the American public and Washington policymakers see China as fully three-dimensional – not some flat caricature that fits the needs of the moment. Otherwise, there is a risk of fanning the flames of xenophobia and neglecting opportunities for partnership that would benefit the United States.

Dan Murphy is the executive director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Have an opinion?

This article is an op-ed and, as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please email us.

Want more perspectives like this sent straight to you? Subscribe to get our Commentary & Opinion newsletter once a week.

A well-known legal axiom has it that the cover-up is often worse than the crime.

President Richard Nixon’s attempts to conceal his administration’s involvement in the Watergate break-in, for example, ultimately led to his humiliation and resignation.

Oftentimes, however, the crime and the cover-up are equally appalling. An ongoing scandal involving the U.S. Coast Guard provides a vivid case in point.

In late June, CNN reported that an internal investigation by the Coast Guard had “uncovered a dark history of rapes, assaults, and other serious misconduct” at the Coast Guard Academy.

Moreover, investigators discovered that the agency’s senior leadership had covered up most of those crimes and then subsequently buried the investigative report that substantiated the grave misconduct.

Lawmakers: Coast Guard academy sex assaults threaten national security

The Coast Guard’s original investigation, dubbed “Operation Fouled Anchor,” was started in 2014 after a 1998 academy graduate alleged that she had been raped by a classmate years prior. The agency’s exhaustive inquiry extended over five years and the final report was issued on January 31, 2020.

In the end, Coast Guard investigators substantiated sixty-two cases of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape between 1988 and 2006.

Adm. Paul F. Zunkunft was the Coast Guard commandant when the probe started and was succeeded in June 2018 by Adm. Karl L. Schultz. At the time of the transition, investigators planned to brief Department of Homeland Security officials and members of Congress on their preliminary findings, and they had already concluded that Operation Fouled Anchor should be “required reading.”

But according to CNN, Schultz and his vice commandant, Adm. Charles W. Ray, instead covered up the report’s criminal findings to avoid a sex abuse scandal and protect the Coast Guard’s reputation.

Guard leaders went as far as to require government officials familiar with the investigative case to sign non-disclosure agreements. Disturbingly, this was occurring at the very time that two congressional committees were investigating the Coast Guard over allegations of promoting a hostile work environment.

Adm. Ray retired in 2021. Schultz followed the next year and was succeeded as commandant by Adm. Linda Fagan, who has admitted to having some knowledge of Operation Fouled Anchor prior to CNN’s reporting.

Fagan, however, did not begin briefing the agency’s congressional overseers until after she learned that CNN had begun investigating the secret probe.

Last fall, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, where the Coast Guard Academy is located, announced that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had opened an inquiry into the scandal and called the episode “probably the most shameful, disgraceful incident of cover-up of sexual assault that I have seen in the United States military ever.”

Fellow Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy posted on social media that Coast Guard leaders “were deliberately hiding the truth” and he demanded the firing of “anyone involved in this cover-up.”

For years, I have been calling on Coast Guard Academy leadership to be transparent about sexual assault on campus and get serious about reform. Instead, we now know they were deliberately hiding the truth. Anyone involved in this cover-up should be terminated. It's that simple. https://t.co/bYpmJlV2p2

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 30, 2023

Following CNN’s initial reporting on the scandal in June, Fagan issued a rare public apology for the Coast Guard’s failure to protect the victims of sexual abuse and to successfully prosecute the perpetrators. In August, she went further. In a letter sent to the entire Coast Guard workforce, the commandant admitted that agency leaders had failed to demonstrate the “courage and discipline” to act in a transparent manner consistent with the Coast Guard’s core values.

Fagan wrote that the leadership had betrayed the victims and that the organization’s concealment of the sex crimes had “shattered” trust and respect.

If the Coast Guard wants to regain trust and respect, there must be accountability at the highest levels of leadership, including active duty and retired officers.

If, as it appears, admirals Schultz and Ray participated in a conspiracy to cover up these crimes, then they should be punished judicially. Recalling the flag officers to active duty to face courts-martial would provide them fair opportunities to defend themselves.

The actions or inactions of admirals Fagan and Zunkunft must also be examined closely. What exactly did Fagan know? When did she know it, and what did she do about it?

Since the CNN story broke, Zunkunft has spoken out about the “betrayal up the chain of the command” and how “incredulous” he is that Schultz and Ray chose not to brief Congress in 2020.

However, congressional investigators must ask why Zunkunft did not take action himself when he realized that the Coast Guard’s leadership was intentionally avoiding disclosure of the substantiated findings of Operation Fouled Anchor. Being in the retired ranks does not allow an admiral to relinquish his ethical and legal obligations.

Unfortunately, there is an ugly history of American admirals participating in the cover-up of illegal activities. In 1990, Navy Rear Adm. John Poindexter was found guilty of five felonies related to the Iran-Contra scandal. His crimes included obstruction of justice for falsifying and destroying documents and for lying to various congressional committees.

College president resigns amid Coast Guard Academy investigation

In 1991, the Navy’s infamous Tailhook scandal broke and it ultimately led to the punishment of more than a dozen flag officers. Some of the admirals had attempted to cover up the sex crimes committed at the annual convention of naval aviators.

Much more recently, the Navy has suffered through the “Fat Leonard” public corruption scandal. The careers of at least a dozen admirals have been negatively impacted, including one flag officer who served eighteen months in federal prison for various crimes, including the destroying of evidence and lying to investigators.

Only time will tell if the Coast Guard’s admiralty and senior civilian executives will be held accountable for their apparent misconduct related to Operation Fouled Anchor. In a democratic society, flag officers, active duty and retired, must be held to the highest standards.

And with a demonstration of strict accountability and complete transparency, aspiring senior leaders will be cautioned: the crime of a cover-up can be as disgraceful as the original offense.