WASHINGTON -- Updates to the Defense Department’s transgender policy take effect today, and defense officials stressed the policy is anchored in the core value of treating all service members with dignity and respect. Anthony Kurta, performing the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told Pentagon reporters that all those most [...]
WASHINGTON -- Readiness was a top priority for both the National Guard and the services’ Reserve components when planning budgets for fiscal year 2020, their leaders told Congress yesterday. During a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, the chiefs of all four service reserve components and the National Guard Bureau briefed lawmakers on [...]
WASHINGTON -- A United States Space Force would build on and accelerate the advantage the U.S. Air Force has given the American military in space, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Force Secretary Heather [...]
WASHINGTON -- The fiscal year 2020 defense budget request is a “strategy-driven budget,” the Defense Department’s comptroller said yesterday during a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. The budget fully supports the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which points to the “erosion of our competitive edge against China and Russia continues to be DOD’s central problem,” [...]
WASHINGTON -- Wars have been fought on land, on the sea and in the air. But the next conflict may be a war in the immediate area above the breathable atmosphere, amid the satellites now circling Earth, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan said today. Shanahan spoke during the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, [...]
WASHINGTON -- Site visits to military housing by defense officials to hear firsthand accounts of problems there are just one step being taken to ensure military families have safe places to live. Robert H. McMahon, the assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, told lawmakers on April 4 that the military services are aware of problems [...]
WASHINGTON -- Since 2001, the military medical establishment has learned much about caring for trauma. Many American service members alive today who have fought since 9/11 would have died in previous wars. Thousands more have benefitted from state-of-the-art care and the experience that military medical providers have learned in 18 years of war. The lessons [...]
WASHINGTON -- In the future, artificial intelligence could augment the background investigative work performed by humans, cutting the time it takes and providing a more realistic, in-depth and realistic profile of the individual, the technical director for research and development and technology transfer at the Defense Security Service’s National Background Investigative Services said recently. Mark [...]
WASHINGTON -- The armed services are relentless in attacking the problem of sexual assault and sexual harassment, and experience shows that commanders must be part of that attack, the service judge advocates general told the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel subcommittee April 2. Commanders will be key to getting after this affliction, said Army [...]
WASHINGTON -- Given proposed military medical staffing reductions, the Defense Health Agency and the services are working together closely so access to care and availability of health services are consistently maintained for beneficiaries, the DHA director said on Capitol Hill yesterday. Navy Vice Adm. (Dr.) Raquel C. Bono told the Senate Appropriations Committee that as [...]
