“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell announced. “He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack.

“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” he continued. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

If Hasan’s execution is indeed carried out by a firing squad, it would mark the first such case for the service since Jan. 31, 1945, when Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik was executed by a U.S. Army firing squad in France for desertion during World War II.

The last death sentence carried out by the U.S. military was in 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging at the gallows in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after he was convicted of raping and attempting to kill a young girl.

Hasan, who was born in northern Virginia, walked into a Fort Hood readiness processing center on Nov. 5, 2009, and opened fire using a semi-automatic handgun.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier.

Former Army Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, a two-time combat veteran, was shot four times in the attack and spent nearly a year recovering in various hospitals.

“He looked me straight in the eyes as he pointed the gun at me, and a split second later, I’m on the floor with a hole in my head,” he told the Killeen Daily Herald in 2023.

At his court-martial, Hasan, now 56, admitted to the shooting, and in 2013 said he carried out the attack in support of the Taliban.

At the time, Hasan requested a delay in court proceedings so he could ready a new legal strategy that would show he acted “in defense of others.”

Asked by presiding Judge Col. Tara Osborn who he was defending, Hasan replied, “The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban.”

Hasan was convicted by a military jury in August 2013, which recommended he be sentenced to death.

He was subsequently transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he has been incarcerated on death row.

Jonathan Lehrfeld contributed to this report.

Now, Pentagon officials say that some of that AI is not part of the current revamp of the polygraph interview process, after Defense News asked for a response to concerns about the earlier statements and the slides.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, or DCSA, which vets security clearance holders and applicants, said in an emailed statement that “active research and development” for the “Modernizing Polygraph” effort “does not incorporate generative super intelligence, also known as artificial intelligence,” that creates new content — such as emails, graphics or voiceovers.

Nor does the effort include “large language models,” meaning chatbots like ChatGPT and other programs trained on giant data sets to engage in human conversation, DCSA added.

And the research does not involve “facial action coding [of emotions], micro-expression analysis or vocal analyses,” the statement said. “While those technologies are not part of the effort,” DoD will “continue to monitor emerging scientific capabilities to evaluate their potential utility down the road.”

DCSA did not address other types of AI models that, according to the slides, researchers had been developing to scan spoken and written language for “deceptive speech” patterns.

Wednesday’s statement came after Defense News sought a response to criticisms from national security lawyers, scientists and AI auditors about AI’s ability to analyze deception — meaning not just to lie, but to do so knowingly and willfully.

They warned that AI-aided scanning of speech patterns, vocal stress or facial expressions to read minds lacks scientific backing, will compound errors and may violate civil liberties in a domain where few such rights exist.

Defense News chronicled their concerns and the Pentagon’s prior research and development of AI-aided lie-detection and emotion-estimation tools.

The recent DCSA statement, including the project name “Modernizing Polygraph,” contrasts with several earlier DoD statements, 2027 budget documents and DCSA slides that Defense News obtained through an open records request.

In July, a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the technology, explained the advantages of AI-driven sentiment and deception analysis.

“AI processes data in real time and enables standardized, objective data analysis,” the official told Defense News, via email. “AI-based analysis is a force multiplier for our human investigators, not a replacement.”

The official added, “The models are primarily trained on data from laboratory-controlled studies using volunteer participants.”

The DCSA slides, which include presentations from 2021 through 2025, show that the Air Force, DCSA and academic labs had been working on “sentiment analysis” AI models and “deceptive speech” AI-aided analysis since 2019, as part of a “Credibility Assessment Modernization” project.

In July, the DoD official described the AI models as part of a larger multi-year “transformation,” which the official referred to interchangeably as “Polygraph+” and Credibility Assessment Modernization.

Current budget materials price the Polygraph+/Polygraph Next project at $31 million, including costs for AI “scoring algorithms” and “decision aids,” thermal imaging tools to spot blood flow changes that can reflect stress and other non-contact sensors.

On Friday, DCSA declined to provide additional information, including the scope of the “Modernizing Polygraph” project and the decision not to include AI-based voice screening and facial expression analysis.

Trained on Twitter and Reddit

Over the summer, Farakh Zaman, a developmental leader at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, elaborated on the appeal of AI-aided deception analysis.

“By processing subtle physiological, vocal and linguistic cues, these developmental algorithms may help establish a more objective baseline for investigators and pinpoint specific areas requiring further human-led clarification,” he said by email in July.

Wednesday’s DCSA statement said that the Air Force is not involved in the “active” research and development phase.

One undated declassified DCSA slide describes the Air Force amassing “deception-related” text to create a “deep learning model,” an algorithm that analyzes hordes of data to find patterns. The Air Force trained an early model on text from websites including Twitter, Reddit and other vocabulary data sets such as WordNet, according to the slide.

“This baseline training helps the algorithms understand natural, modern linguistic patterns, slang and everyday vocabulary,” Zaman explained in July. He acknowledged the need for “further rigorous testing, validation and a clear transition path” before fielding a prototype.

A separate DCSA slide, dated May 2025, contains a flowchart that depicts an avatar — a computer-generated image of an interviewer — in front of a security clearance applicant. Next to the applicant, a camera and microphone feed audio, video and speech-to-text data from the interview into various large language models. The recording devices and algorithms interact to gauge the applicant’s emotional state, while a human investigator observes and keys in questions for the avatar to ask.

DCSA’s Wednesday statement said the university that drafted the chart is not involved in the current research and development stage.

According to another undated DCSA slide, DoD has set a goal for natural language processing technology to interpret an interviewee’s feelings with 75% accuracy.

In July, the Pentagon official said by email that a human investigator remains essential for “the contextual reasoning and emotional intelligence required in these sensitive interviews.”

‘I’ve caught AI lying to me’

Ahead of Wednesday’s statement, Mark Zaid, a national security attorney who reviewed the slides, warned that the danger of derailing a military officer’s career is too great for AI to misinform an investigator.

The polygraph device “is just registering the physiology of the person,” such as spikes in breathing rate, perspiration or blood pressure, he said. “Then a human examiner analyzes those reactions to render an opinion.”

Here, however, “AI would be taking the polygraph readings and rendering an opinion” to the human examiner, said Zaid, who has represented individuals on all sides of the polygraph table, from workers disputing revoked clearances to former government officials and polygraphers.

“Now, we’re starting to get into the movie Minority Report,” he said, referencing a 2002 Steven Spielberg film that depicts a government reliant on psychic children for tips to predict crimes and detain people accused of future crimes.

Zaid, whose own clearance was revoked temporarily after he represented a whistleblower pivotal in President Trump’s first impeachment, said, “That concerns me more than the polygraph,” if science does not back AI’s reliability.

So far, scientific studies do not.

Rather, decades of research have discredited theories, popularized by shows such as Lie to Me, that anyone — human or artificial — can recognize deception based on speech patterns, vocal stress or facial movements.

Another concern scientists and auditors have is bias: the Justice Department has warned that using emotion-recognition algorithms to measure worker competency can discriminate against high performers with intellectual or developmental disabilities, who algorithms do not always understand.

Also, “automation bias,” the tendency to take AI’s advice without question even when conflicting information exists, may further erode the polygraph system’s reliability, technologists warned.

“[T]here is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable,” the Supreme Court declared in a 1998 decision banning polygraph results and polygraphers’ opinions from military courts.

Zaid said he appreciates the attempt to retool polygraph testing but wants proof that the planned approach is in fact an improvement.

“Anytime we might be able to scientifically advance the ability to determine truth, with accuracy, would generally be a good thing,” he said. But “the first thing that jumps out at me with AI is how often it is wrong…I’ve caught AI lying to me.”

Greg Rinckey, a former Army Judge Advocate General Corps officer who now provides security clearance representation, said that today’s “technology is so outdated, where they’re using tubes around people’s chests and blood pressure and sweat, so, any way that you can get a more reliable test for security clearances, especially counterintelligence investigations [into leaks], is a step up.”

That said, he questioned, “What is the research saying on how accurate it is?”

At present, research suggests the odds of AI-aided speech, voice or face analysis pegging a lie are about 50:50.

AI is ‘assuming dishonesty’

“There are no – reliable – diagnostic cues for deception detection, and I have yet to see any evidence, whether it is with humans or with artificial intelligence, that goes against that trend,” said David Markowitz, a Michigan State University professor who studies AI’s ability to understand human communication.

For instance, “the leakage idea — that these microfacial expressions will leak out from our awareness, signaling veracity or deceit — there’s very little evidence to support that, unfortunately,” he said.

Markowitz expressed doubts about AI-based deception analyses that claim an accuracy rate of 75% because “that is not how accurately humans do it, and often these systems are a big reflection of how humans do it.”

For example, he pointed to a recent experiment in which he prompted a Google Gemini AI model to examine audio and video of mock interrogations of accused cheaters in a trivia game, all of whom claimed innocence and some of whom were lying. Prior studies had asked humans to observe the same interrogations. DoD has entered into agreements to run a secure version of Gemini on unclassified and classified networks.

Markowitz said that his study, “The [in]efficacy of AI personas in deception detection experiments,” found Gemini was just as inaccurate as humans, both faring no better than chance, when prompted to distinguish fraudsters from truth-tellers.

What’s more, compared to humans, AI was more likely to wrongly accuse a trivia player of lying.

Markowitz gave one possible reason for AI’s systemic distrust of trivia players: The AI “is assuming that someone must have done something wrong because why else would they be questioned,” he said. “Anytime that someone is in an interview setting where they might be accused of something, a large language model is assuming dishonesty.”

Supreme Court: The jury is the lie detector

The consequences of a machine, whether a heart monitor or a voice screener, potentially bungling a credibility assessment can last a year or longer, said Zaid, the national security lawyer.

When officers who have successfully passed exams without issue suddenly fail their latest polygraph test, DoD typically puts them “in a corner with a dunce cap on for a year before officials will re-administer another exam,” he said. “You can’t get promoted. You can’t get certain assignments. And you can’t go overseas, which, to case officers, is death careerwise.”

Further, civil courts routinely dismiss complaints when employees claim that inaccurate results cost them their clearances. Nearly 40 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the courts have no power over such national security matters.

Concerns about power imbalances and due process prompted the European Union to label AI-aided polygraph tools as “high risk” and place strict limits on law enforcement’s use of them.

Stateside, the Supreme Court, in forbidding polygraph evidence in military courts, noted that allowing it would meddle with the human’s role, or, as it were, the jury’s role, in determining credibility.

“A fundamental premise of our criminal trial system is that the jury is the lie detector,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Court’s 1998 United States v. Scheffer decision.

Pointing to the court’s decision, Zaid said that he wants assurances of due process when staff undergo administrative proceedings to contest a revoked clearance resulting from misaligned algorithms. Comparing the situation to successful cases disputing speeding tickets caused by a miscalibrated street camera, Zaid questioned, “Would the person be provided the evidence? An understanding of the AI’s training?”

New biases

Pentagon officials have long stressed the desire for AI-based lie detection to help curb gender and cultural biases that human investigators may carry into an interview room.

At the same time, employers’ use of similar technology for pre-employment screening has faced allegations of other biases and system errors.

“Facial expression analysis is heaviest in terms of biases against individuals with disabilities,” said Jo Ann Oravec, a University of Wisconsin professor whose research focuses on AI, public policy and disability issues.

For instance, AI-powered video screening of job applicants tends to misinterpret the involuntary twitches or vocal outbursts of skilled people with certain disabilities — and thus pass over qualified applicants, said Oravec, author of the 2024 article “From Polygraphs to Truth Machines: Artificial Intelligence in Lie Detection.”

In response to concerns about such biases in July, the Pentagon official said via email that the credibility assessment modernization plan adheres to DoD’s AI Ethical Principles of “responsible, equitable and traceable” use of algorithms.

The Air Force’s Zaman, in his July email, said that his team’s work aligns with DoD’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence Guidelines.

Researchers “are actively engineering and testing these models” to account for “diverse, representative training data,” he stated. The testing covers “broad variations in speech, language and expression.”

Ryan Carrier, founder of ForHumanity, a global nonprofit that helps organizations audit AI systems, said that the Pentagon’s principles and guidelines are a skeleton of those that the European Union follows and that ForHumanity uses for inspections.

For example, the EU’s AI Act demands users of high-risk systems receive training to overcome a different kind of bias called “automation bias” — or the tendency to execute AI’s advice without questioning its accuracy. This bad habit can lead to incorrect data overriding correct decisions, Carrier said.

Also, multimodal systems, meaning AI systems that simultaneously parse audio (the subject’s voice), video (their facial movements) and text (interview transcriptions), tend to misalign data and results, yielding an irrelevant analysis, Carrier said.

The system “could be making determinations that a person is lying or trying to deceive me that are outside of the tool’s specifications,” he explained.

In response to concerns about multimodal systems in July, the Pentagon official had said, “Any automated output is treated strictly as auxiliary data for a highly trained, certified polygraph examiner.”

Similarly, Zaman, at the time, said that investigators who use AI-aided deception-detection systems are “trained to contextualize the tool’s findings, preventing automated outputs from dictating an outcome.”

To safeguard against mismatched data or results, the Air Force keeps a documented history of each piece of data’s origin and modifications and brings in independent white-hat hackers to try producing false correlations, he added.

“We recognize that multimodal AI systems present unique technical challenges, and mitigating these risks by hardening our systems is central to our engineering and testing protocols,” Zaman said.

Reason for suspicion?

In August, when the Pentagon administered a raft of polygraph exams to probe leaks alleging the Iran conflict is depleting U.S. arsenals, some observers suspected the endgame was not to find the leakers, but to crack down on disloyalty.

Critics of the planned system said that AI-based deception analysis may be best suited to achieve the same purpose.

“If it’s purely an intimidation technique, it may not be utterly useless from the point of view of large bureaucracies,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

The expectations for AI-powered trustworthiness testing resemble the hope that U.S. national security officials held out for the polygraph about 100 years ago, other lawyers said.

Polygraph devices “were seen as this magic-miracle-machine when they first came out,” and, over time, the government learned that when seemingly making deductions, the tools were “actually just flagging correlating factors, like heart rate and physiological factors that can indicate lying, but aren’t actually reflective of it,” said Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project.

He added, “Thinking that AI sentiment analysis tools are actually making an assessment or engaged in reasoning — that’s not what those machines are actually able to do.”

Fewer veterans died by suicide in 2024 than the previous year, and the rate — the number of deaths per member of the veteran population — also declined slightly, according to a new report from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA’s annual suicide prevention report, released last week, said that 6,488 veterans died by suicide in 2024, down from 6,662 in 2023. The rate of suicide among the nation’s veterans in 2024 also fell, from 36.6 per 100,000 in 2023 to 36.4 per 100,000 in 2024.

Despite the declines, the suicide rate among U.S. veterans remains more than twice the rate of the general U.S. population, which was 16.4 per 100,000 Americans in 2024 and 16.7 per 100,000 in 2023.

According to the report, the risk of suicide remains high for young veterans, with the highest rate — 45.5 per 100,000 among veterans ages 18 to 34. The rate was 38.5 per 100,000 for those ages 35 to 54; 32.7 per 100,000 for those ages 55 to 74; and 35.8 per 100,000 for those aged 75 and older.

But within those figures, there’s some good news for younger veterans: According to the VA, the rate decreased for those ages 18 to 34 by 4.7% and for those 35 to 54 by 2.3%.

The VA has invested millions in suicide prevention and outreach in recent years, conducting an outreach program to veterans that resulted in enrolling 250,000 veterans in VA care since January 2025 and launching a “Don’t Wait. Reach Out” public service campaign that the department says has contributed to 3.5 million veterans taking action.

The VA announced Tuesday it had awarded $111 million in grants to nonprofits, state and local governments and organizations to support suicide prevention programs. The Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program aims to connect with veterans who aren’t connected with VA services.

While the rates of suicide among veterans who receive health services from the VA remain higher than those who don’t get VA medical care, the rate for those enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration fell 4.8%, which VA officials said was significant given the complex medical needs and risk factors for suicide among veterans seeking health services.

Leaving military service has traditionally also been a significant risk factor. But suicides among those separated from active duty have declined dramatically since 2019, when the rate was 51.1 per 100,000 veterans. In 2023, the most recent year the data was available, the rate was 36.1 per 100,000.

VA officials said the Solid Start program, an effort to provide outreach to those recently separated from the military, has had an impact, with the rate of suicides among those who have been contacted at 30.5 per 100,000, and 42.7 per 100,000 among those the VA has tried to reach but did not make contact.

The department has launched several initiatives it hopes will make a bigger impact on veterans’ suicide, including tracking staff efforts to encourage veterans to enroll in VA care.

“VA healthcare saves lives, so we’re making every effort to get more Veterans into the system to get the care and benefits they’ve earned,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “That means deploying innovative new ways of reaching unenrolled Veterans, screening them for suicide risk and expanding suicide prevention training both inside and outside VA.”

More than 159,000 veterans have died by suicide since 2001. Those at highest risk include homeless veterans, those with mental health conditions and female veterans.

According to the new report, 17.7 veterans die by suicide each day, down from 19 per day in 2018, when a record 7,015 veterans took their own lives, according to the VA.

The data contained in the VA’s annual suicide report is based on national and state reports.

Floyd Johnson, who served in the Army from 1983 to 1985, was sentenced in 2013 to 40 years in prison on felony charges in Florida. While incarcerated, Johnson was diagnosed with service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder and received an 80% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Because Johnson was in prison, however, his rating was reduced to 10% because veterans who are incarcerated for more than 60 days are restricted by law from receiving full benefits.

To fight the reduction, Johnson, who represented himself, filed a case in a Florida district court arguing that Congress violated his constitutional rights by instituting a law that placed caps on veterans’ benefits for those in prison.

The Middle District of Florida court dismissed the case in 2022. Johnson appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where he received legal representation and requested to name a new defendant — the VA or the VA secretary. He also strengthened his argument against the Veterans Judicial Review Act of 1988, which created a process for veterans to appeal disability claims decisions.

Under the law, a veteran whose claim is denied or disputed goes to the Board of Veterans Appeals, and if the result is not satisfactory to the veteran, it can be appealed to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Johnson’s attorneys argued that the Veterans Judicial Review Act improperly limited the process to the BVA and CAVC, stripping a veteran of the right to file suit in a district court.

They argued that a previous case allowed veterans to pursue benefits cases elsewhere under circumstances that involve constitutionality. They also noted in their Supreme Court petition that other appellate courts have agreed that veterans may take their cases to district courts.

“A veteran’s access to the courts should not vary depending on where he lives. This case presents an ideal vehicle for resolving this conflict on an important question of federal law,” they wrote in the petition.

During oral arguments Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the system “odd,” but not for the reasons that Johnson’s attorney — Jeffrey Chen of the Atlanta-based firm Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore — cited.

Sotomayor pointed out that with a regulation in place saying the BVA can’t address constitutional questions, the veteran can still appeal any decision that comes out of it, but the government cannot, according to the law.

“We have to take the system as it exists, and that’s a very odd system, is it not?” Sotomayor said. “It leads to your conclusion … which is let constitutional questions go to the court because that’s where the government would have a right to defend the law.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointed out that if the Board of Veterans Appeals violated a veteran’s constitutional rights, they could appeal to the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals and eventually, the federal circuit where constitutional questions are decided.

“He has that route. He still has a way of pressing the constitutional claim,” Barrett said.

Chen argued that restricting claims reviews and suits to the BVA process would “empower the inferior officers of the BVA to render final decisions” and disregard laws.

“None of the government’s proposed workarounds is consistent with the Veterans Judicial Review Act,” Chen said.

Assistant to the Solicitor General Kevin Barber argued that the current system is sufficient and the previous case cited by the plaintiff preceded the VJRA and should not apply because the law changed the entire process.

“VJRA fundamentally changed the statutory scheme. … It’s the current statute that matters,” Barber said.

He added that the plaintiff’s additional argument, that the VA can’t decide constitutional challenges to statutes, “is mistaken.”

“True, the Board of Veterans Appeals in the past has been inconsistent on its authority, sometimes deciding such claims and sometimes not, but as we see it, the board can and must decide veterans’ constitutional claims,” Barber said. “Petitioner’s contrary view would conflict with the statutory text and deprive veterans of their ability to bring such claims to the agency. It would even compel the VA to enforce a hypothetical benefit statute that was blatantly unconstitutional.”

An estimated 107,400 veterans are incarcerated in state or federal prisons, according to the Department of Justice, although not all receive VA disability benefits. Johnson’s case does not challenge the law that limits the amount of VA benefits veterans receive while imprisoned. But in their petition, Johnson’s attorneys said he plans to pursue that effort after the current case is decided.

“This case illustrates the impact of a single veterans’ benefits statute. Section 5313, the statute Mr. Johnson challenges, limits the benefits of thousands of veterans. Moreover, 30 percent of all veterans experience service-connected disabilities, and veterans with PTSD are disproportionately at risk of incarceration,” the petition states.

The court is expected to rule early next year.

At Falcon Peak, a U.S. Northern Command exercise held in September in Arizona, soldiers watched as defense firms demonstrated radars, interceptor drones, autonomous gun systems and other technologies designed to detect, track and destroy small unmanned aircraft.

Army officials said drones crossing the southern border are typically systems sold commercially and used by criminals for surveillance linked to their smuggling and human trafficking operations. Brigadier General Brian Filler, deputy commander for operations at Joint Task Force Southern Border, told reporters the military detected 378 drone incursions in the previous 30 days and that the trend was increasing.

“We are seeing largely commercial off-the-shelf available drones,” Filler said, adding that most carry surveillance cameras and are often observed alongside cross-border movements.

The U.S. military said earlier this month it had downed 11 cartel drones using ​lasers since deploying the technology along the southern ‌border in August.

Learning from Ukraine

Military planners are racing to keep pace with lessons from Ukraine, where drones have transformed the battlefield and driven rapid innovation in both offensive and defensive systems.

Military officials caution that cartel-operated drones are not comparable to the sophisticated battlefield ones seen in Ukraine or the Middle East. But they say the border offers a valuable operational environment to test equipment, train soldiers and evaluate how systems perform outside controlled laboratory conditions.

The exercise highlighted the Pentagon’s growing embrace of venture-backed defense technology firms. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, investors have poured billions of dollars into companies such as Anduril, Shield AI, Saronic and a wave of smaller drone and counter-drone startups seeking military contracts.

Anduril’s Ghost drone was featured in the demonstrations, as well as the radar-and-camera detection system produced by Teledyne FLIR, the “Bullfrog” counter-drone automated machine gun produced by Allen Control Systems and an interceptor drone sold by Powerus, which ​went public on Thursday, merging with a company backed by sons of US President Donald Trump.

Officials said part of their goal is replicating the rapid iteration cycle seen in Ukraine.

“We tend to look at Ukraine and we say, ‘I am so impressed with how quickly they can adapt on a daily or weekly basis,’” Brigadier General Matt Ross told reporters.

“What we should really do is replicate that process.”

Andrew Tangen, attorney and superintendent of the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County, Illinois, alleges that Lukas Simianer and his company, VetClaims.ai, posted defamatory statements on social media accusing Tangen of having “backed fraudsters from his government email to maintain ... [a] monopoly” in assisting veterans with their claims.

Simianer said he developed the VetClaims.ai system following his own challenges with the VA disability claims process.

Tangen’s lawsuit, filed Sept. 15 in federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleges that Simianer “attacked the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, The American Legion, and [National Association of County Veterans Service Officers], as a monopoly” in assisting veterans with claims.

Then, Tangen alleges, Simianer pointed veterans to the company he owns, which sells services that veterans service organizations provide at no cost. The lawsuit names Simianer and Patriot Claims, LLC, doing business as VetClaims.ai, as defendants.

In an interview with Military Times, Simianer said he has no intention of removing the comments about Tangen and the other veteran service organizations.

Instead, he would like to bring more attention to the issue.

“Truth is the ultimate defense to defamation,” Simianer said.

Tangen ‘tagged and taunted’

Tangen is also the president of NACVSO. Simianer has challenged Tangen, the VFW, DAV, American Legion, and the NACVSO to debates about the current system versus the benefits of the VetClaims system of assisting veterans with their claims. VetClaims.ai is based in Pflugerville, Texas.

The VACLC, which Tangen heads, is a public, county-funded veterans service agency within Lake County government. It’s staffed by officers accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs who provide the same pro bono claims assistance as private veterans service organizations.

For years, veterans and their advocates have complained about a handful of for-profit companies, sometimes referred to as “claims sharks,” that take advantage of veterans by charging them excessive amounts of money to help them file disability claims, when a number of veterans service organizations provide these services for free.

Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs has reduced the claims backlog to under 70,000 for the first time in six years. The average wait time is now about 78 days.

Federal law limits who can act as an agent or attorney in preparing, presenting or prosecuting a benefits claim with the VA. They must be accredited by the department to do the work.

The law also limits when veterans can be charged fees. Accredited agents and attorneys generally aren’t allowed to charge or receive fees for claims representation services provided before a veteran receives notice of the initial decision.

Tangen alleges that in the fall of 2025, a veteran came into the Veterans Assistance Commission of Lake County and told Tangen that a woman who claimed she worked for VetClaims.ai asked him for $1,250 “to file a VA claim he could file for free.” He checked and found that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

Tangen referred the matter to the Illinois Attorney General for investigation. According to the lawsuit, Tangen said nothing about the referral in public and stepped aside after handing the matter to authorities.

“He spends his career helping veterans obtain their earned benefits at no charge,” the lawsuit states. “Reporting improper solicitations to the authorities is part of that job.”

Tangen told Military Times in late September that VetClaims.ai isn’t the only company his office has referred to the Illinois Attorney General.

The state attorney general’s Military Rights Veterans Bureau “received one complaint from a Veterans Assistance Commission superintendent claiming VetClaims.ai is exploiting veterans for disability claims while sharing personally identifiable information to an artificial intelligence platform,” said April McLaren, deputy press secretary in the Office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “While the Attorney General’s office is actively investigating similar companies and claims, we do not share details of ongoing investigations.”

The core allegations of the lawsuit are about Simianer’s alleged defamation of Tangen.

“The accusations attack the honesty on which Mr. Tangen’s life’s work depends,” the lawsuit alleges. “He brings this suit to clear his name, recover the damages allowed by law and have the statements identified in this complaint taken down.”

Tangen told Military Times he has never charged veterans for his work. He became a county veterans-service officer to help veterans without taking a share of the benefits they are able to recover, he said.

His only compensation is the fixed public salary he receives as the VACLC superintendent, and he works regularly with the VA, the VA Office of Inspector General, state authorities and members of Congress on deceptive practices that harm veterans.

Months after Tangen filed the report, the state attorney general, Simianer, and his company “told a national audience that Mr. Tangen was corrupt,” the lawsuit alleges, referring to a June 4 post by Simianer on X.

Tangen denied the accusation and posted the government email showing he had reported VetClaims.ai to the Illinois Attorney General.

For weeks, Simianer “tagged and taunted Mr. Tangen across social media platforms,” the lawsuit alleges.

In his lawsuit, Tangen asks the court to require Simianer and VetClaims.ai to remove false and defamatory statements, and asks for an unspecified amount in damages.

Simianer told Military Times that at no point has the Illinois Attorney General’s office conducted an investigation on VetClaims.ai.

Charging for claims assistance

VetClaims.ai charges veterans $1,250 for their services. The company draws on a plethora of resources to help veterans back up their claims, Simianer said.

“When they go to VetClaims.ai, within six days they will have everything they need to file a claim,” he said. “We support them through the appeals process at no extra cost,” he said.

Simianer and the company website acknowledge that VetClaims.ai is not accredited by the VA.

“This country was not built by men who follow unjust laws,” Simianer said. “Anybody who looks at this law and has any ounce of legal research to their credit or capability would understand that vets are the only federal claimants who are forced to fail first before they can seek professional help.

“Some make the argument you should go to the VSOs. They’re free. God bless, free stuff is great. But if free stuff worked, there wouldn’t be a $1 billion market. The VA’s own accredited attorneys are taking home $33 million a month out of veterans’ own back pay. “

By law, the VA may withhold a portion of a veteran’s back pay to pay accredited representatives directly, under strict conditions, and the fees are generally limited to 20%. According to the VA website, $37.2 million in these fees were paid in August.

Simianer contends the current system costs veterans money. He cites an example of one veteran who had been rated by the VA with a 20% disability since 2013, but with three months of working with VetClaims.ai, he was granted 80%.

“Being stuck at 20% instead of 80% from 2013 to 2026 due to an incompetent [veteran service organization] cost this veteran roughly $233,000 in unpaid compensation,” Simianer claimed. “And closer to $350,000 once you count what that money would have earned had it been in their hands all along.”

According to the VetClaims.ai website, the company’s veteran experts “use advanced AI to quickly and accurately prepare claim strategies by generating compliant medical evidence, documents, and communications that meet the VA’s strict standards.”

Meanwhile, the VA has spent millions of dollars on automated systems, including a program called Automated Decision Support, which pulls together information and a variety of evidence for claims adjudicators to consider when deciding a claim. The department has also increased the size of its processing staff.

Veterans of Foreign Wars defended its record of helping veterans, noting that they have modernized their processes alongside the VA and its technology partners, among other actions.

“Over the past decade, our program has evolved to reach more veterans, now representing more than 600,000 beneficiaries who received more than $16 billion in earned benefits last year alone,” said Ryan Gallucci, executive director of the VFW Washington Office.

VA-accredited representatives are subject to “rigorous training, professional conduct requirements and legal obligations to protect veterans’ information, Gallucci added.

“Veterans deserve to know the difference between accredited professionals providing accountable representation and unaccredited profiteers exploiting regulatory loopholes under the guise of innovation,” Gallucci said. “There’s no debating that if someone fails to adhere to basic accreditation standards, their motivations are likely somewhere other than serving veterans.

“Instead of recycling outdated tropes about VA or flashing their largesse across the internet, perhaps these unaccredited actors should spend more time understanding how today’s veterans’ benefits system has evolved to better serve veterans.”

The latest BLS data, gathered through mid-September, showed only 29,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls in September, compared with the revised August figure of 133,000 jobs added, as the overall unemployment rate ticked up from 4.1% in August to 4.2% in September. The 29,000 jobs added were well below market expectations that the economy would add 84,000 to 95,000 jobs in September.

The slower-than-expected job growth suggested that the job market, which has shown remarkable strength going back to the Biden administration despite rising gas and diesel prices, war with Iran, and tariff wars with once-firm allies, may be showing signs of weakening.

In its report for September, the BLS said that the unemployment rate for all veterans at 3.5% remained the same as the 3.5% recorded in August, while the jobless rate for the generation of veterans who joined the military after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks went up from 3.5% in August to 4.1% in September.

In response to the jobs report, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that the BLS data showing that 9,000 manufacturing jobs and 12,300 construction jobs were added in September were “proof that President Trump’s reindustrialization agenda is working,” and Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council.

When asked on Fox Business whether the BLS report was disappointing, Rogers responded, “No, not even a little bit.”

However, Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long said the report was “disappointing for a lot of Americans — it’s still a low hire, low fire economy.”

In a phone interview with Military Times, Long said that “wage growth has been totally wiped out by inflation.” She noted that average hourly earnings fell 3% on an annual basis in September, compared to the current 3.4% inflation rate.

“Nothing here looks alarming,” Long said of the BLS report, but the overall “hope for hiring picking up is gone.” However, the market for veterans with blue-collar job skills “still looks pretty good,” she added.

Despite the disappointing jobs report, “we’ve exceeded all our placement goals” for 2026, said Kevin Rasch, a retired Navy commander and now regional director in Florida for the Wounded Warrior Project’s Warriors to Work program.

In a phone interview, Rasch told Military Times that the goal for 2026 was to find job placements for 1,375 veterans, and the Wounded Warrior program had already helped to find jobs for 1,535 vets, Rasch said

He attributed part of the success of the Wounded Warrior program to “being a little bit more proactive in our outreach efforts. We’re meeting vets where they are.”

The Agriculture Department’s SNAP eligibility information did not accurately reflect changes affecting veterans and the program’s time-limited participation rules as of September 2026, according to a new Government Accountability Office report.

GAO also found that veterans face misconceptions and other barriers to applying for benefits and recommended that USDA update its information and develop outreach materials specifically for veterans.

The issue centers on SNAP’s three-month time limit for certain able-bodied adults without dependents who do not meet work requirements. Veterans were among the groups exempt from that time limit from September 2023 through July 2025.

A 2025 law removed the categorical veteran exemption, meaning veterans can now be subject to the time limit unless they qualify for another exception. GAO found that USDA’s eligibility website had not been updated to reflect the change as of September 2026.

Stakeholders told GAO that some veterans believe their VA benefits make them ineligible, that applying would take benefits away from someone else or that the application process is too difficult. They also cited problems with technology, documentation, communication and completing required interviews.

“I lost my job 7 months ago, and I still haven’t found another one to replace it,” explained Derick Broadnax, an Army veteran who was denied SNAP benefits. “Food keeps getting more expensive and getting a good-paying job is tough for everyone to get right now.”

An estimated 1.4 million veterans lived in food-insecure households each year from 2015 through 2020, according to research cited by GAO. An estimated 6.9% of veterans lived in households receiving SNAP in 2024. That figure measures veterans living in households receiving SNAP, not the percentage of veterans eligible for the program.

Of 47 states with USDA-approved SNAP outreach plans for fiscal 2026, 39 identified veterans as a target population. Thirteen planned to provide information or application assistance at veteran facilities or centers, 11 planned to train government or nonprofit organizations that work with veterans, and six planned outreach at veteran events.

USDA issued annual outreach priority memorandums encouraging states to target veterans from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2025. USDA officials told GAO they did not plan to issue a similar priority memorandum for fiscal 2026 or fiscal 2027. Forty-four states identified veterans as a target population in their fiscal 2025 outreach plans, compared with 39 in fiscal 2026. GAO did not establish that the change in federal guidance caused the decline.

The VA-USDA partnership on veteran food insecurity also has not operated as planned. The agencies established a memorandum of agreement in 2023, but their collaborative efforts slowed after USDA lost key staff in April 2025.

Since then, the agencies have not held the workgroup meeting called for under the agreement and have not completed the agreement’s required annual review. Agency officials told GAO they consider the agreement to still be in place, but the agencies have not reviewed it as specified in the agreement.

VA continues to screen veterans for food insecurity and connect them with assistance. VA screened 4.4 million veterans in fiscal 2025; about 103,000 screened positive and roughly 78,000 accepted referrals to a VA social worker or dietitian. VA social workers can assist veterans with SNAP applications and interviews.

Beginning Oct. 1, federal reimbursement for allowable state SNAP administrative costs fell from up to 50% to 25%, shifting a larger share of those costs to states. GAO did not establish what effect the change will have specifically on veteran outreach.

GAO made four recommendations. USDA should update its SNAP eligibility website, develop and distribute veteran-specific outreach materials in coordination with VA, and establish a formal mechanism for working with VA.

VA received a corresponding recommendation to establish a formal mechanism for working with USDA. Both agencies concurred with the recommendations, and GAO lists all four as open.

A memo from Assistant Secretary of War for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Timothy Dill increases hostile fire pay to $450 per month from its previous top rate of $250, and imminent danger pay to $275 monthly, or $9.16 per day, up from the prior cap of $225 or $7.50 per day.

The memo, released by the Pentagon, is dated July 14, but sets the change to take effect Thursday with the start of the new fiscal year.

It cites a Department of War Instruction updated in 2024 that gives the assistant secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs the authority to determine hazard pay amounts.

The Marine Corps had already announced earlier in September that it was updating its pay caps to the amounts set in the memo, but did not describe the move as a military-wide change.

“Those who face combat deserve higher compensation that reflects the risks that they willingly undertake on behalf of our nation,” Anthony J. Tata, undersecretary of war for personnel and readiness, said in a statement. “Raising imminent danger and hostile fire pays for the first time in two decades is a step toward recognizing that sacrifice.”

Hostile fire pay and imminent danger pay are mutually exclusive.

According to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, hostile fire pay is permitted for troops who meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Subjected to hostile fire or explosion of a hostile mine
• On duty in an area in close proximity to a hostile fire incident and the member is in danger of being exposed to the same dangers actually experienced by other service members subjected to hostile fire or explosion of hostile mines
• Killed, injured or wounded by hostile fire, explosion of a hostile mine or any other hostile action

Imminent danger pay is authorized on a geographic basis according to a list maintained by DFAS. Last updated in May, the list includes 58 locations, ranging from Afghanistan to Yemen. Iran, the oldest location on the list, has been designated an imminent danger location since 1979; it’s also one of 19 regions newly designated in February as dangerous with the start of Operation Epic Fury.

“If an [Imminent Danger Pay]-designated area escalates into active combat, commanders can transition personnel from IDP to [Hostile Fire Pay] immediately,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a separate statement Thursday. “This provides a clear and timely mechanism to acknowledge heightened risk levels.”

The memo also noted that the changes include a decrease from $150 to $100 monthly in hardship duty pay-location, another pay governed by a separate list of regions — in order to keep from exceeding set maximums.

The Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request in May contained indicators that the services were seeking to increase hazardous fire and danger pays for troops, though officials at the time said a decision had not been made about doing so. Officials noted in announcing the change that, even at the old pay rates, service members rarely got the maximum allowed.

“Before the last increase in hazardous pay in 2002, pay rates varied by qualifying duty and the service member’s rank/pay grade — typically ranging from $100 to $240 per month,” officials said in a release. The new increases, they added, “are designed to appropriately compensate Service members for the varying levels of operational risk they face while serving the United States around the world.”

Reporting directly to Hegseth, the Office of Religious Affairs, or ORA, is meant to offer service members “first-class religious support,” according to the defense secretary. Hegseth first announced the office during his State of the Force address on Wednesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, to junior officers and enlisted leaders.

“Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual,” Hegseth said on Wednesday. “God is good. Evil is not. And America’s military must understand the difference.”

Hegseth announced the new office alongside a slew of other initiatives, such as the Autonomous Warfare Command, but he said all would be incomplete without faith, which he described as the “most essential part of our republic.”

Hegseth said that less than 5% of the joint force identifies as nonreligious, and the other 95% recognizes an “Almighty God.” The Pentagon has not released an official report of the religious makeup of the military since 2019, when the composition of active-duty personnel was 70% Christian, 2% atheist or agnostic and 24% reported as unclassified or unknown.

He said the force previously did not prioritize faith and instead emphasized “political correctness and secular humanism” and claimed that “secular careerists” and lawyers with red tape were dictating the spiritual life of service members, instead of military chaplains.

“The people who actually practice faith and religion, our chaplains, were buried echelons deep, waiting for permission,” he said. “We asked chaplains to serve and sacrifice, and then sidelined them with paperwork and process. And that ends now.”

Service chaplains will continue to serve as the department’s primary providers of religious support, with the office being their advocate, a Pentagon release says.

ORA’s First Steps

Effective immediately, the office will report directly to the defense secretary, according to a Sept. 30 memorandum. Its director, who has yet to be named, will serve as the principal advisor to the secretary and deputy secretary for religious affairs across the department.

The office’s core responsibilities, as outlined by the memo, will be to ensure that the Pentagon and military departments obtain sufficient funding and resources for religious affairs, such as chaplain-led programs and faith-based initiatives, as well as sponsoring and overseeing research and analytical tools to support and assess spiritual fitness and readiness across the military.

The office will also align and issue policies on religious affairs for the secretary; represent him on all religious affairs matters in engagements with Congress, religious endorsing organizations, and external governmental departments; and realign the Armed Forces Chaplains Board and its executive director under the office’s authority for chaplain advisement.

“This is not going to be a paper-pushing shop,” Hegseth said. “It’s going to have real teeth. It’ll protect budgets, demand infrastructure and strengthen religious support. The experts, our chaplains, will finally have an advocate at the highest levels.”

Within 60 days of the memo’s date, the office is expected to submit an initial baseline budget to Hegseth for fiscal year 2027 funding, the memo says, including permanent manning requirements. In the next 90 days, the director of Administration and Management will work with the office’s director to incorporate it into the Pentagon’s organizational framework and identify the initial allocation of senior executive service, civilian and military billets to stand up the office.

Within 90 days of the memo, the military departments’ secretaries are also expected to submit a baseline report of all unfunded and underfunded religious affairs requirements to the office’s director.

Pentagon’s Religious Overhaul

The announcement comes as the Pentagon has largely reduced the number of officially recognized faith affiliations from over 200 to 31, sparking criticism that most are Christian denominations and pressing the department to update the classifications by removing the subheading that grouped the Christian denominations.

In what the secretary described as a “top-down cultural shift,” he directed an overhaul of the Chaplain Corps and later required military chaplains to stop wearing rank insignia and to instead wear symbols of their faith.

To further align with the Pentagon’s policies, military services recently began requiring service members to update their Religious Affiliation Codes in their personnel records. The Department of the Air Force said the requirement exists only to improve chaplains’ knowledge of the force’s religious makeup.

In the past, Hegseth has faced backlash from advocacy groups for hosting monthly Pentagon Christian prayer services and his religious rhetoric in public appearances, raising concerns that he is associating the Christian faith with politics and the military.

“Our national motto is, after all, ‘In God We Trust,’” Hegseth said Wednesday. “Today, we reaffirm that trust. We’re placing spiritual health at the same level as physical health.”

The government watchdog found that the Defense Department reported obligating approximately $68 million for immigration detention from Oct. 1, 2024, through May 31, 2026. The Guantanamo operation was one of six new detention-expansion initiatives U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pursued without first developing a comprehensive strategic plan.

By July 2026, ICE had scaled back four of the six initiatives, resulting in wasted or potentially wasted resources, the GAO said in a Sept. 24 report.

A January 2025 presidential memorandum directed DHS and DOD to increase detention capacity at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to 30,000 beds. DOD assembled tents for an initial capacity of 5,000 beds, but the Department of Homeland Security determined they did not meet detention standards.

The tents were taken down and never used to house detained noncitizens, in part because building facilities that met ICE standards was cost-prohibitive. DoD officials told the GAO, “detaining the planned population was deemed infeasible,” and the operation was downsized in mid-February 2025.

DOD’s role in the detention expansion extended beyond Guantanamo.

After DHS requested access to military installations in February 2025, DHS and DoD began planning detention facilities at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

By October 2025, DoD officials said they no longer planned to build detention facilities on other military installations, and DoD and ICE officials told GAO investigators the Indiana and New Jersey facilities did not move forward.

ICE’s request for military assistance had not been rescinded, however, and the agreement has remained active as of August 2026.

At Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, the Army awarded and administered a $1.3 billion task order on behalf of ICE for Camp East Montana, a soft-sided detention facility that opened in August 2025. The Army transferred contract administration responsibilities to ICE at the beginning of fiscal 2026.

A separate GAO report found the Army wasted up to $11.5 million on services at Camp East Montana between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15, 2025, when there were no detained noncitizens housed there. The Army later paid about $423,000 for meals it did not need while the facility operated below planned capacity.

After ICE took over the contract, it paid another $7.1 million for meals it did not need from Oct. 1, 2025, through March 12, 2026. As of August 2026, ICE had not incorporated recommended cost-saving measures into the contract and continued paying for services it did not need.

GAO recommends that ICE develop a comprehensive strategic plan for its detention expansion efforts, including goals, activities and resource needs.

DHS agreed, but said ICE does not expect to complete the plan until Aug. 31, 2027. GAO said more timely completion “may be warranted.”

Mobarakzadeh asked the sergeant major for the number of the work order he’d put in to address the problem, but got only confusion in response.

“Not one person in the formation put a request in,” Monarakzadeh, now command sergeant major of U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, said during a call with reporters on Monday.

“And so I chewed him out a little bit and let him know that this was actually his fault, that we could have got this fixed rather quickly, but how is [the Army Directorate of Public Works] supposed to know that there’s something wrong with your barracks if you haven’t put a work order in?” Monarakzadeh continued. “And of course, we got it fixed the same day.”

It’s experiences like those, Mobarakzadeh said, that provided the impetus for the Army’s new “NCO’s Barracks Guidebook,” released Tuesday.

The 20-page guide, with AI-created icons and illustrations, includes responsibility checklists and links to regulations and policy, as well as vignettes about how to handle, for example, the discovery of suspected drugs in a barracks room or helping a unit properly close out a barracks ahead of a deployment.

What it’s not, leaders emphasized during the call, is a set of new rules or policy. Rather, they said, it’s a repository of information for noncommissioned officers who might not be getting, or retaining, the right training in the first place.

“A lot of this information is new to some of these leaders because we gathered best practices from so many places, and so they might not be ideas that they’ve heard or considered before,” Mobarakzadeh said. “And so it’s just kind of sharing all that information across the formation.”

‘Beans, barracks and bullets’

The guide went through 59 drafts before publication, Mobarakzadeh said. The hope is that it creates a common understanding of what’s expected of barracks managers, and particularly the senior NCOs, when troops encounter problems with their living quarters.

“There was also a time during the Global War on Terror where we outsourced this; we had a number of civilian barracks managers … and they fulfilled many of these responsibilities,” he said. “So you have some NCOs that maybe have an education gap, where they didn’t learn how to do this when they were more junior NCOs, and now they’re in those first sergeant and sergeant major roles.”

“There was a time [when] we talked about, NCOs are responsible for beans, barracks and bullets, and you just don’t hear people talk about those responsibilities as much anymore,” Mobarakzadeh added. “And so this is one step into kind of getting that back.”

The Army has come under scrutiny in recent years for the condition of its on-base housing, with watchdog reports in 2023 showing plumbing disasters, cracked sewer pipes, black mold and vermin. The same year, an Army two-star general drew more criticism when he said that, at his Texas base, the problem was “adulting.”

“I will tell senior leaders ‘I don’t have a mold problem, I have a discipline problem,’” said Maj. Gen. James P. Isenhower III, then commanding general of the 1st Armored Division.

Last month, though, a new government watchdog report found that some barracks were still “chronically neglected” because of underfunded maintenance.

Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the launch of a new Barracks Task Force with more than $1 billion in investments to improve troops’ living conditions around the world.

Command Sgt. Maj. Jacinto Garza, senior enlisted leader of Army Materiel Command, suggested that troops haven’t been effectively familiarized in the past with housing procedures and expectations.

“This is no different than when our kids go off to college and live in dorms and in apartments. There’s an adjustment that needs to take place,” he said. “Our young soldiers come into the Army. They live on our Army installations. They’re inside of our barracks, and they have to assimilate to the standard operating procedures of our barracks, which they deserve to be educated on.”

During a six-week pilot program with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, this summer, first sergeants were asked to read the new guidebook and assess shortcomings in existing knowledge-sharing around barracks management, Mobarakzadeh said.

“You can’t expect NCOs to do things that you haven’t trained them to do, whether it’s run a rifle range or inspect a barracks, and it’s a lot harder than you think,” he said. “Like, how clean is clean enough? What things are you looking for? We have the whole example of contraband. What do you do when you find contraband?”

A company that participated in the pilot added new barracks inspection training to in-processing as a result.

The leaders did acknowledge that most bases have a shortage of public works staff, leaving the onus on troops to report problems and possibly follow up multiple times to make sure barracks problems are addressed.

“Ultimately, if the NCO doesn’t put the work order in, and then doesn’t continue to escalate things and say, ‘Hey, like I’m tracking this work order, it’s overdue, and no one’s here’ ... you know, the squeaky wheel,” he said. “You know how that goes, and so that’s our part of it.”

The Army announced earlier this year that it had met its active-duty recruiting target four months early for a second year in a row, bringing in more than 61,500 soldiers and cementing a dramatic turnaround from two years of missed recruiting missions in 2022 and 2023.

Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that the Army had met its Special Forces recruiting mission for the first time in a decade and a half.

“For the first time in FIFTEEN YEARS, our Special Forces recruiters achieved their mission of 2,940 candidates,” he wrote. “And, for the first time in a DECADE, the U.S. Army Reserves have met their mission of 14,322 future Soldiers in September — two weeks ahead of schedule … The Warriors want IN!”

Speaking at an Association of the United States Army event on Tuesday, USAREC Commander Lt. Gen. Johnny Davis confirmed those statistics and added that the Army National Guard had also met its recruiting target, narrowly hitting its goal number a week before the end of the fiscal year.

Davis, who took command during the recruiting “tough spot” of 2022, said the Army’s current success is allowing recruiters to select for specific high-value roles and needs.

In 2025, USAREC became a three-star command, absorbing other aspects of recruit development and training to become the Army’s primary “force generation” authority. Davis said the change allows the command to track recruits through their training pipelines and into the force and better understand what it takes for them to succeed along the way.

“When you think about precision in today’s environment, because we are doing so well, we can actually firm up many of our operational units with the right talent,” he said. “Instead of just putting more people, you know, maybe the wrong [military occupational specialties], now we’re starting to focus on, OK, if the Army has 10 or whatever number of Patriot battalions, let’s get the right number of 94 Sierras and Tangos or all of those maintenance teams, and that involves a lot of hard work.”

Likewise, he said, recruiters have been able to identify the number of unmanned aerial systems pilots — MOS 15X — the Army wants to train and strategize accordingly. That kind of precision allows for special attention to be paid to the particular physical and skill demands for each MOS and whether recruits are equipped for success in their selected field.

“Now that we own the whole pipeline, [when recruits drop out or are reclassified to a different MOS], we have to do something about that,” he said.

For example, recruits on track to become 92R parachute riggers need a certain kind of upper-body strength to succeed.

“We’re starting to pay attention to that, because we’re losing them in the pipeline,” Davis said.

As the Army seeks to continue its recruiting successes, the service is also looking to reduce the number of soldiers from other MOSs pressed into recruiting tours, Davis said.

“There’s a lot of young sergeants and staff sergeants out there — 82nd, 101st, 1st Armored — and we would come in after their deployments and pluck one or two and send them off to recruiting,” he said. “We want to lower that … and so one of the areas we really want to look at is our permanent recruiting force and what it takes to invest in them.”

Last year, the Army rolled out a new MOS — 42T talent acquisition specialist — in a move to develop a permanent cadre of recruiters. Now, Davis said, service leaders are examining how to further invest in them through training, experiences with outside industry or other opportunities that may increase efficiency and effectiveness.

“Then we can lower the number of young sergeants that we draft from the force, and so that’s where we are right now,” he said. “We’re right in the first year, and it’s looking promising.”

Another key to the Army’s recruiting success, Davis said, is acknowledging the difficulty of recruiting duty by promoting new recruiters immediately upon completion of the Army Recruiting Course. He said that the change to policy, recently announced, has already resulted in new promotions for 2,000 soldiers.

“What I’ve learned when getting it right is, you can’t just fix one thing,” Davis said. “You have to address a bunch of different things.”

The Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, will have service-like authorities and is intended to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the military, Hegseth said during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on Wednesday.

Hegseth said the new command is intended to address an acquisition system that cannot keep pace with the speed of technological change on the battlefield.

“The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it,” Hegseth said.

The announcement comes three months after Hegseth consolidated the Defense Department’s unmanned and autonomous systems under a new Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems, or DRPM-UxS. The office reports directly to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steven Feinberg and was established to oversee the development, procurement, fielding and sustainment of unmanned and autonomous systems across the department.

The DRPM-UxS also assumed oversight of existing efforts, including Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Defense Innovation Unit and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.

During his Wednesday address, Hegseth also announced Project Agincourt, an interim effort intended to prepare the way for AutoWarCom.

Hegseth named Owen West, the director of the Defense Innovation Unit, and Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser to lead the initiative for the next year. He described the two as a “CEO, COO partnership,” with West focused on strategic risks, resources and scale, and Strasiser focused on operational problem-solving and the realities of employing the systems in combat.

Hegseth said a four-star commander will soon be named to lead AutoWarCom, while West and Strasiser will guide Project Agincourt as the department prepares to establish the command.

Agincourt will test what Hegseth called “warfighting acquisition,” bringing military operators, engineers and private companies into rapid development cycles and moving acquisition decisions and funding closer to combatant commands and frontline units.

“This model fuses operators with entrepreneurs in rapid adaptation cycles while distributing decisions and dollars closer to frontline units to combatant commands,” Hegseth said.

Realistic training exercises — and, when possible, combat — will be used to test autonomous systems and determine which technologies should be rapidly expanded, the secretary announced.

The department will also begin phasing in new military occupational specialty frameworks to support the military’s shift toward autonomous warfare, Hegseth said, creating career paths for a new generation of autonomous warfighters.

Hegseth said the Pentagon needs both sophisticated, high-end weapons and large numbers of lower-cost autonomous systems, describing the approach as a “high-low mix.” He compared high-end weapons to lightning and massed drones and other autonomous systems to the wind and rain of a thunderstorm.

“Today, we need both quality and quantity,” Hegseth said.

He went on to liken the establishment of the new command to an act of biblical significance, stating the department was “putting on the full armor of God. Because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual.”

Hegseth pointed to Ukraine as a lesson in the need for systems that can be adapted rapidly as battlefield conditions change. He said the United States must be able to develop, test and modify autonomous systems at a pace that matches the evolution of warfare.

The effort is intended to bring the military’s frontline leaders closer to the engineers and companies developing new technologies, which Hegseth described as the military’s greatest comparative advantage.

Miller is currently the deputy chief of Space Operations, Strategy, Plans, Programs and Requirements. He will, if confirmed, take over Space Command after his predecessor, Gen. Stephen Whiting, steps down from command toward the end of the year or the beginning of the next.

“Congratulations to Lt. Gen. Miller on his nomination to serve as Commander, U.S. Space Command,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess said in a social media post. “He is an exceptional guardian who has represented our service with distinction, and we believe he is a strong candidate for this critical joint leadership role.”

Prior to his current post, Miller served as the commander of Space Operations Command at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. He also served as the special assistant to the vice chief of space operations at Peterson and has held roles commanding guardians and airmen at the squadron, group and wing levels at various bases.

If confirmed, Miller will become the fourth commander of SPACECOM since its reestablishment in 2019, at a time when U.S. leaders are increasingly emphasizing the role of space in operations and the nation’s defense.

The nomination comes on the heels of Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink revealing that the department has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force from “hostile adversary action.” Keeping details sparse, he declined to say what type of weapon it is and reasserted its necessity for deterrence.

Officials have touted space’s role in recent missions, such as Operation Epic Fury, calling its capability essential to the joint force.

“During Operation Epic Fury, our components, notably at U.S. Central Command and Space Command with support from components at European Command and Pacific Command, demonstrated that guardians are not supporting from the sidelines as a ‘nice to have,’ but we are delivering spacepower directly into the fight as a ‘need to have,’” Schiess said during his keynote at the mid-September Air & Space Forces Association’s 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

As commander, Miller will be responsible for the space domain while providing space-enabled combat effects across the world, bearing combat command authority over joint warfighters operating ground and space-based systems.

Miller would succeed Whiting, who has held the position since January 2024 after being nominated by former President Joe Biden the year prior and confirmed in December 2024.

Whiting previously served as commander of Space Operations Command and held numerous positions across U.S. Strategic Command, Air Force headquarters and the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

A formal confirmation hearing for Miller has yet to be set by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Each company will develop capabilities for the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) Increment 4 program, making missiles that can be launched from the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and that can hit maritime and land targets in motion more than 621 miles away.

According to the release, development in Fiscal Year 2027 will conclude in “a competitive fly-off and down-select.” In Fiscal Year 2028, companies will participate in a final fly-off and those that have shown effective designs may be awarded additional agreements.

The Tuesday Other Transaction Authority agreements come roughly a week after the Army awarded a $1.2 billion contract for Lockheed Martin to produce its short-range ballistic missiles. According to the company’s release, the contract is for initial production and future orders of the Increment 2 PrSM.

The U.S. military launched a Lockheed Martin PrSM for the first time in combat against Iranian targets, according to the U.S. Central Command.

Though the command has denied it, experts think that a PrSM missile — which reportedly disperses small projectiles — killed dozens of civilians in Lamerd, an Iranian city, on Feb. 28.

Then he played an AI-generated clip of what he meant: a robopunk mix of humanoid and crab-like ground robots skittering across a barren front line, doing work that is still too complicated for the robots Ukraine fields today.

The video laid out Fedorov’s vision for an Army of Robots, a force of two-legged upright and other ground robots that would take over many of the front line’s most dangerous but necessary jobs from soldiers.

“Our idea is to combine engineers, startups and capital into one ecosystem so we can launch humanoid-like robots on the battlefield,” Fedorov told Defense News in an exclusive interview after his presentation.

“We want to eventually substitute our infantry with these robots.”

To get there, Fedorov is calling on specialists in robotics, AI, sensors and autonomous systems to pool their talent in the kind of concentrated wartime push that built the first atomic bomb, and to focus it on the machines he says will one day replace Ukraine’s infantry.

The 35-year-old aims for the group to have its first confirmed battlefield result from a humanoid-like robot within six months and, within a year, an assault in which robots take on the most dangerous parts of a mission with no infantry alongside them.

To hit the six-month mark, there isn’t time to spend on research and development, he said, so he will begin by investing in companies with weapons that have already been tested and shown some market viability.

Fedorov wants Ukraine to seize the initiative in the war’s next technological cycle before Russia – whose far larger army and industrial base let it scale new weapons quickly – gets there first.

“Russia always thinks about new strategies, how to hack our frontlines,” he said. “We need to be the first side to hack our frontlines.”

Robots are only one of the defense tech areas that the former minister plans to develop within the new project.

“It could be robots, it could be autonomous systems,” he said. “We will have three key directions: sensors and robots, cheaper anti-jet-Shahed missiles, and AI strike drones and missiles.”

Under Fedorov’s plan, members of the Army of Robots will identify a battlefield problem, find a technical solution and a team, provide resources for development, test the product with troops in real conditions and scale what works.

It is the same model he used for the Army of Drones, which he started in 2022 as Ukraine’s digital transformation minister and which opened the market to Ukrainian drone makers, launched government procurement and operator training and helped form the first strike drone units.

“The Army of Drones ... changed everything in our country and in the world and, I think, in the future of the world,” he said. “Now we are trying to build the same ecosystem for robots.”

Ukrainian troops already lean heavily on ground robots for assaults and basic tasks, carrying out more than 25,000 logistics and evacuation missions in August – 3.3 times more than in January, according to the Defense Ministry.

But most of the futuristic robot designs featured in Fedorov’s video, humanoids included, are not yet used in combat in Ukraine today, and the ground robots that are in use almost always have a human operator at the controls, usually over Starlink.

Fedorov said the ambitious effort will involve multiple companies working on different stages of the product lifecycle, with some making components, some assembling complete robots and others developing software to run them.

“We have some funds for these first companies,” Fedorov said, declining to name names. “It means that we have two or three companies that will be our partners in these directions.”

The Army of Robots will include a venture fund to invest in technology teams, its own defense-tech companies and a research and development arm, according to a press statement issued after the announcement.

The initiative comes weeks after Fedorov announced that he was starting a new defense company, with Palantir CEO Alex Karp as its first investor.

Fedorov told Defense News the company will start with a corporate fund and may later launch its own venture fund.

The biggest challenge facing the development and deployment of these next-gen robots is the necessary speed of innovation, Fedorov said.

Ukraine has to field these robots fast enough to save its infantry and stay ahead of Russia, which he said has learned to copy Ukraine’s battlefield innovations and scale them rapidly.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is heading into another winter of Russian strikes with air-defense interceptors in short supply.

The weekend Fedorov made his announcement, Russian drones hit kindergartens and university buildings in Kyiv, struck a large civilian hospital and destroyed a food market and multiple gas stations outside the city, killing at least three people and injuring dozens in a combined aerial attack that lasted days.

“We don’t have enough time,” he said. “We need to achieve these results as soon as possible.”

In a memorandum signed Tuesday, Hegseth directed the secretaries of the military departments to immediately terminate the practice of appointing civilian faculty to tenured positions and develop hiring plans that prioritize institutional flexibility and faculty contributions to the warfighting mission.

“The primary purpose of our Military Service Academies (MSA) is to prepare the next generation of officers to lead the men and women of the greatest military on Earth,” Hegseth wrote.

Hegseth said tenure can contribute to “academic stagnation” and “faculty complacency” and make institutions less able to adapt to emerging needs.

He also argued that tenure can contribute to curricula drifting from the mission of educating future warfighters toward the research priorities of tenured faculty.

In military academies, civilian faculty have been part of the academic structure for decades. In 1992, Congress enacted legislation that expanded the ability of the academies to employ civilian faculty.

Academy leaders have previously cited tenure as a factor in recruiting and retaining civilian faculty. During a March 2025 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland said tenure gives civilian faculty opportunities to advance within their disciplines. Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette Davids described tenure as a recruiting tool and an incentive for civilian faculty to stay, while Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind said tenure was part of the academic progression for civilian faculty.

The directive does not say that existing tenured civilian professors will lose their tenure, nor does it specify what employment structure will replace tenure for newly hired civilian faculty or how the departments will implement the change.

Hegseth framed the policy as part of a broader effort to reshape the academies around their military mission.

“To ensure our educational institutions remain firmly focused on this warfighting mission, we must address the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality,” the secretary wrote.

Hegseth will give a speech on Wednesday in front of hundreds of junior officers and enlisted officials, updating them on his priorities for the military.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Hegseth would say that he plans to cut the billets for general and flag officers by 20%. Those are one- to four-star generals and admirals. That is an increase from the minimum 10% cut Hegseth laid out last year.

Rather than firing people, one of the officials said, the rank of some future jobs would change while billets for others would be canceled.

Hegseth has moved quickly to reshape the department, firing senior officers across the military and dealing with niche personnel issues. Last year, he ordered a 20% reduction in the number of four-star officers.

Pentagon adds new ‘warfighter’ evaluation for officers seeking first star

The event on Wednesday comes a year after Hegseth slammed “fat generals” and diversity initiatives in front of U.S. military generals and admirals during a speech at Quantico.

Last year, President Donald Trump also delivered an address at Quantico and floated the idea of using deployments to U.S. cities “as training grounds for our military.”

The remarks by Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, and Trump, a former reality television star, resembled a reality TV format, as top U.S. military officials were summoned on short notice.

Addressing an auditorium full of top brass who flew in from around the world at the time, Hegseth defended his firings of flag officers, including the top U.S. general, who is Black, and the Navy’s top admiral, who is a woman. He said the officers he relieved were part of a broken culture.

“If the words I’m speaking today are making your hearts sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth said.

Starting in November, veterans won’t have to pay insurance premiums for three months, ending in January 2027, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs announcement.

All told, the break is expected to save veterans nearly $150 million in insurance payments, officials said.

On average, veterans pay about $110 a month for VGLI coverage. VGLI insurance premiums vary and increase every five years as veterans age. Payments range from $30 a month for the maximum $500,000 in insurance to $2,200 a month for the maximum coverage for veterans 80 and older.

All veterans with VGLI policies are eligible for the premium holiday if they have a current policy that hasn’t lapsed or been cancelled due to non-payment of premiums.

Eligible veterans don’t have to take any action. They will be automatically exempted from the three months of premium payments and will be notified by letter or email within the coming weeks if they are eligible. Many veterans pay by allotment from military retired pay, or by withdrawals from their bank account.

Those veterans who paid in advance can either receive credit on their policies for three months or ask for refunds, officials said.

Officials said the program’s financial performance has been “incredibly strong,” making the premium holiday possible.

“VA is all about making life better and more affordable for veterans, and this premium holiday will help the men and women who served this nation keep more of their hard-earned money,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the announcement about the initiative.

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage doesn’t automatically carry over after leaving the military. Everyone leaving the military with SGLI coverage qualifies to sign up for VGLI, with certain time limits.

However, VGLI is more expensive than SGLI, so experts advise shopping around for other life insurance options. One advantage of VGLI is that veterans who sign up within 240 days of leaving the military don’t need to prove they’re in good health.

The order was directed toward U.S. Cyber Command and the Defense Intelligence Enterprise in a Sept. 22 memorandum, which says the Defense Department will use its capabilities to protect the reliability of U.S. voting mechanisms from “external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors,” while maintaining the fundamental freedoms that characterize the country.

The memo does not identify a specific foreign actor or any particular election system or voting jurisdiction. Hegseth describes the effort as part of a “whole of government” effort to protect free and fair elections. The midterms will take place Nov. 3.

“Our Nation’s ability to conduct free and fair elections is a steadfast principle of our democracy,” Hegseth wrote. “Assuring and protecting this ability is a no-fail mission and the DoW will do its part in supporting this whole of government effort.”

The memorandum directs the commander of U.S. Cyber Command and the directors of the National Security Agency, Chief of Central Security Service, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to carry out their respective roles to counter foreign threats to the elections.

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the directive is intended to protect the integrity of the election process from foreign interference.

“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our republic,” Parnell said. “By working in lockstep with federal, state, and local partners, U.S. Cyber Command and our defense intelligence teams, we will defend the integrity of America’s voting systems, expose foreign malign influence, and ensure our democratic processes remain secure from external manipulation while protecting the fundamental freedoms of the American people.”

Hegseth directed Cyber Command to collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security to counter potential cyber threats from foreign actors targeting the elections.

Hegseth also ordered the Defense Intelligence Enterprise to ensure that every lawful voter can cast their ballot “free from foreign intimidation, coercion, or fear.”

“In America, the people rule,” Hegseth wrote, “and we must ensure that their voice remains sovereign, secure, and entirely undiluted.”

Iraqi security experts say the withdrawal — agreed to in 2024 under U.S. President Joe Biden and carried out by Donald Trump’s administration even as it wages war against Iran — could give Tehran and its allies free rein, while also allowing other U.S. enemies, including the Islamic State, to stage a comeback.

“Iran stands to benefit strategically from the coalition’s departure because it removes a military presence that for years acted as a counterweight to Tehran’s influence in Iraq,” said Jasim al-Bahadli, an Iraqi security analyst specialising in studying armed Shi’ite groups aligned with Iran.

He predicted that the pro-Iranian militia groups would not only portray the departure as a victory for their movement, but also “seek to translate that momentum into greater influence over security and political decision making.”

Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an ‌umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, described the U.S. withdrawal as “a historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project.”

“On Sept. 30, we will celebrate the turning of a black page in Iraq’s history and the failure of the occupation to impose its will on our country,” he told Reuters. “Iraq has proven that its sovereignty cannot be secured by foreign forces, but by the resistance and the will of its people.”

NOT READY

While the eventual departure of U.S. forces is broadly popular among Iraqis, those who worry about the strength of the Iran-backed groups fear the withdrawal is premature.

“We believe Iraq is still not fully ready to take over the security file at this time,” Abdulrahman al-Zobaie, a Sunni tribal leader in Fallujah, once a bastion of anti-American resistance, told Reuters.

“All Iraqis aspire to full sovereignty, and no Iraqi would dispute that. But I believe that the [U.S.-led coalition] leaving in this way and creating a vacuum is what all Iraqis fear.”

American forces invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Sunni Muslim dictator Saddam Hussein, and went on to occupy the country, install a Shi’ite-led government and fight a years-long counterinsurgency before withdrawing at the end of 2011.

They returned less than three years later to help Iraqi forces defeat the Sunni militant group the Islamic State in a major war from 2014 to 2017.

Around twice as many Americans died in “Operation Iraqi Freedom” as in the parallel war in Afghanistan, which ended with an abrupt U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

In recent years, Iraq has been the only country to maintain close political and military alliances with both the United States and Iran, which sometimes used Iraqi territory as a proxy battlefield.

The United States killed a top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, with a strike on the Baghdad airport in 2020. Iran’s allies repeatedly fired on U.S. bases, sometimes drawing reprisals.

In this year’s war against Iran, seven of the U.S. service members listed as killed were in Iraq, the last an Army sergeant who died during the controlled detonation of a drone at a base near Erbil in July.

VICTORY FOR IRAN’S AXIS

Iran, which says its ultimate aim is to force American forces to leave the entire Middle East, casts the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as a victory for its “axis of resistance” of allied armed groups across the region.

“Lasting security will prevail in Iraq” once the Americans leave the country and the region, the deputy chairman of the National Security Commission of Iran’s Parliament, Amir Hayat Moqaddam, said on Monday.

Iran “welcomes the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and will undoubtedly support it,” he told Iran’s parliamentary news service. “Resistance groups are currently taking action, sometimes targeting and confronting American troops.”

Washington has accused Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq of playing a role in the wider Middle East conflict by launching attacks on neighboring countries at the direction of Tehran, most recently hitting a major Saudi oil pipeline this month. The Baghdad government says it is trying to curb their influence.

NEW LIFE FOR THE ISLAMIC STATE?

Some Iraqi security officials, both in the federal government and the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, say the U.S. pullout also risks giving new life to Islamic State fighters, who, despite the defeat of their self-proclaimed caliphate nearly a decade ago, retain a sleeper cell network.

At their height, the fighters occupied a third of Iraq and killed thousands of people, including hundreds they videotaped themselves gunning down inside a former U.S. military base.

A lack of U.S. intelligence, logistical support and drones will give the Islamic State a chance to regroup, said Kurdish commander Sirwan Barzani.

“For more than two weeks, we have noticed movement by [Islamic State] sleeper cells, after it was announced in the general media that there will be an official withdrawal of the international coalition from Iraq by the end of September,” he said. “This has boosted, in my opinion, the morale” of the fighters.

Iraqi security forces said a suspected Islamic State cell was preparing suicide attacks to coincide with the pullout. The plot highlighted concerns that the militant group remains capable of exploiting security gaps despite years of military setbacks, said four Iraqi security and army officials.

The Islamic State “is seeking to send a message that the group is still powerful and capable of launching bloody attacks,” said Col. Khalid al-Bayati, a senior security official in the strategic oil town of Kirkuk.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking member of the Senate Veterans’Affairs Committee, and six other Democrats on the committee sent a letter Sept. 23 to Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and CEO Mike Sicilia demanding documents and detailed explanations for the increase. The lawmakers gave Oracle until Oct. 23 to respond.

The request comes weeks after VA increased the ceiling on its Oracle EHR contract from roughly $10 billion to approximately $27 billion.

At a Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, lawmakers repeatedly pressed VA officials to explain what specifically drove the additional $17 billion.

VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence told lawmakers that VA had estimated what it would cost to complete the system’s deployment through 2031, asked Oracle for a proposal and then relied on the department’s acquisition team to negotiate the contract.

But Lawrence said he was not involved in the negotiations and could not explain the specific basis for Oracle’s proposal, how much VA negotiated from Oracle’s request or what specifically drove the additional costs.

When lawmakers asked where the $17 billion was going, Lawrence said it was not necessarily all going to Oracle.

Oracle declined to appear at the Sept. 2 hearing after initially accepting the invitation. The House committee subsequently voted 19-0 to subpoena Ellison and Sicilia to testify.

The Senate lawmakers said they support the House subpoenas and expect Oracle to comply. They also separately asked Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., to hold a full committee hearing examining the EHR modernization program’s costs, delays and patient-safety concerns.

The Senate lawmakers are now asking Oracle to provide documents and analyses supporting the increase, including a full itemization of the “unanticipated complexities” cited as the basis for the additional costs.

They also want Oracle to explain what changed since 2022, when Sicilia told the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee that Oracle was committed to delivering the VA system without exceeding the contracted cost of $10 billion and would fix issues at Oracle’s expense.

The lawmakers also want Oracle to describe its role in helping VA address the 14 outstanding Government Accountability Office recommendations related to EHR modernization that remain not fully implemented. Documentation of cybersecurity performance measures have also been requested, along with an inquiry as to what Oracle has implemented or has plans to implement for the EHR system, in light of the GAO’s finding that the program lacks adequate cyber performance measures.

The $27 billion contract ceiling is separate from VA’s broader estimate of the program’s total lifecycle cost.

Lawrence told House lawmakers that VA estimates it will cost about $37 billion to complete deployment of the system through 2031, plus roughly $11 billion for sustainment, for a total of about $48 billion. He acknowledged during questioning that the estimate was not an independent assessment.

The GAO also told lawmakers that VA had not provided an updated cost estimate or enough detailed documentation for the watchdog agency to determine whether the department’s plans followed best practices.

The GAO reported that VA had fully implemented four of its 18 EHR modernization recommendations but had not fully implemented 14, including 12 priority recommendations, as of August.

Licensed Professional Counselor Kevin Curry, 64, of Frisco, Texas, was convicted last week for his role in health care fraud involving Tricare, the Defense Department’s health program.

According to the Justice Department, Curry, who ran three purported mental health clinics in Texas and Florida, billed Tricare for transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, therapy services for troops and their families that they either never received or were ineligible for.

Curry falsely portrayed himself as a doctor, used fake doctor credentials and paid more than $5.5 million in kickbacks to persuade eligible Tricare beneficiaries to sign up for the therapy, a treatment for severe depression that involves using magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain.

“This defendant exploited a critical health care program serving active-duty service members and their families, diverting taxpayer dollars to bankroll personal luxuries ranging from hotel stays to a casino-themed party and even a gold‑plated Tesla Cybertruck,” National Fraud Enforcement Division Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said in a release. “Such conduct is an affront to the military community and the American public.”

According to the Justice Department, Curry directed employees to fabricate medical records, which he submitted to Tricare as proof of services and billed the program more than $26 million in “false, fraudulent and kickback-tainted TMS claims.”

Tricare paid Curry $17 million, which he used to finance his lavish lifestyle.

A jury convicted Curry of three counts of health care fraud, three counts of offering and paying illegal kickbacks and three counts of “engaging in monetary transactions in criminal derived property.”

Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.

“Kevin Curry shamelessly preyed on the trust of service members, veterans, and their families, siphoning millions from Tricare through lies and coercion,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in a statement. “This conviction sends an unmistakable message that those who manipulate our military community and defraud federal healthcare programs will face the full force of federal prosecution.”

The case was investigated by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, in addition to the Justice Department.

This loss of accountability is not the result of enemy action, theft or lack of resources. Instead, it stems from fragmented asset management practices, administrative disconnects and sustainment systems that no longer align with the complexity of modern warfare.

Across the force, leaders routinely encounter equipment parked behind facilities with no clear ownership, containers filled with property that has never been validated and major end items separated from critical components.

Errors in LINs, NSNs and BOM structures inside GCSS‑Army compound these issues, while inventories frequently reveal administrative discrepancies that accumulate over time. In many units, excess equipment remains on property books for years with no operational purpose, and “Found on Installation” items linger outside the active supply chain with no clear path back into accountability.

For years, these challenges have been dismissed as routine administrative friction — something to be managed rather than addressed. They are not. They represent a steady erosion of readiness occurring in plain sight.

As the Army prepares for future large‑scale combat operations, sustainment visibility will become a decisive factor in operational endurance. The ability to locate, employ and sustain equipment will matter as much as ammunition, fuel and maneuver capability.

Without accurate, integrated accountability across the sustainment enterprise, the Army risks entering the next fight with equipment it cannot find, cannot fix and cannot employ at the speed required for modern conflict.

The Army’s current accountability structure is no longer sufficient

The Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP) remains one of the Army’s foundational accountability frameworks — reinforcing standards, responsibility and command oversight across formations. However, CSDP was designed to ensure compliance, not to provide enterprise‑level asset synchronization.

Today’s Army operates within an environment far more complex than the sustainment systems many units still rely upon. Modern sustainment now requires:

• Real‑time asset visibility
• Lifecycle management
• Predictive sustainment analytics
• Maintenance‑to‑supply synchronization
• Redistribution integration
• Administrative correction oversight
• Cross‑functional logistics visibility
• Supply chain reintegration capabilities

These responsibilities are dispersed across commanders, executive officers, supply sergeants, maintenance sections, clerks and sub‑hand receipt holders who are already overwhelmed by competing operational requirements.

Now, units are simultaneously balancing: rotational deployments; modernization transitions; equipment fielding and divestment; readiness reporting; maintenance operations; deployment preparation; lateral transfers; excess turn‑ins; and continuous inventories.

The result is predictable.

Administrative accountability continues to function, while operational asset visibility steadily erodes. The Army currently lacks a dedicated company‑level leader responsible for synchronizing end‑to‑end asset management across sustainment systems.

That gap is becoming increasingly dangerous.

‘Found on Installation’ equipment is a national readiness warning

One of the clearest indicators of this growing problem is the rising volume of Found on Installation (FOI) equipment across Army installations. FOI equipment refers to property physically present on an installation but lacking accurate ownership linkage or proper synchronization within the Army supply chain.

In many cases, the equipment is still serviceable, operationally relevant, repairable and valuable to Army readiness. Administratively, however, it becomes disconnected from the force.

Once equipment enters FOI status, it often becomes trapped and remains outside maintenance visibility, redistribution channels, readiness forecasting and operational planning cycles

Effectively, the Army begins losing combat power without physically losing the equipment itself. At scale, this drives hidden readiness erosion across the force.

In an era when the Army emphasizes modernization, transformation and fiscal responsibility, the inability to maintain accurate asset visibility threatens all three priorities simultaneously.

The Army must transition from accountability to asset dominance

For decades, the Army has normalized a level of sustainment dysfunction that quietly erodes readiness. Administrative backlog, inaccurate cataloguing, disconnected accountability, excess accumulation, equipment visibility gaps and supply chain inefficiencies have become routine. But normalization is not effectiveness.

The Army has already transformed sustainment into a warfighting capability. It has transformed sustainment into operational reach. Now it must transform asset management into a strategic readiness advantage.

The future force will not succeed simply because it possesses advanced equipment. It will succeed because it can see, track, synchronize and sustain that equipment faster and more effectively than its adversaries. That begins with visibility.

Equipment that cannot be accurately identified, synchronized, tracked or reintegrated into the supply chain is not combat power. It is wasted readiness hiding behind motor pools.

The sustainment gap nobody owns

The Army assigns leaders to operations. It assigns leaders to maintenance. It assigns leaders to supply. But no leader is solely responsible for synchronizing company‑level assets across the entire sustainment lifecycle. This absence of singular ownership creates the conditions where sustainment friction grows quietly and continuously.

Within this gap, small issues begin to compound. Administrative discrepancies multiply, equipment visibility fades and BOM errors sit unresolved. Excess equipment accumulates in motor pools and storage yards; supply chain disconnects appear without warning; and the accuracy of operational readiness reporting begins to erode.

These are not isolated administrative problems. They represent structural sustainment vulnerabilities embedded within the system itself.

Modern warfare will expose these vulnerabilities rapidly. During a time defined by complex logistics networks, accelerated modernization and distributed sustainment requirements, the lack of dedicated asset synchronization at the company level creates a blind spot the force can no longer afford.

When equipment becomes misaligned with the supply chain, the Army doesn’t simply lose visibility; it loses operational tempo, predictability and ultimately combat power.

Recognizing and closing this gap is now essential. Without a leader tasked specifically with end‑to‑end asset integration, sustainment friction will continue to grow beneath the surface, quietly degrading readiness long before it is noticed at higher echelons.

The solution: establish company-level asset management chiefs

To close the widening gap between accountability and operational readiness, the Army should establish a dedicated Asset Management Chief within every company‑sized formation. This role must be distinct from the Property Book Officer, whose mission is administrative accountability and is fundamentally different from the traditional supply or maintenance responsibilities found in current formations.

Unlike the PBO, who ensures the accuracy of records and regulatory compliance, the Asset Management Chief would ensure equipment remains visible, validated and synchronized across all sustainment systems. In short, the PBO protects the accuracy of the property book, while the Asset Management Chief protects the readiness of the equipment.

The Asset Management Chief would serve as the unit’s technical integrator for end‑to‑end asset synchronization, responsible for ensuring equipment is accurately tracked, aligned, and visible across the sustainment enterprise. Their core functions would include:

• GCSS‑Army asset validation
• LIN, NSN, and BOM verification
• FOI identification and recovery
• Property book synchronization
• Equipment lifecycle tracking
• Maintenance‑to‑supply integration
• Redistribution coordination
• Excess management
• Administrative correction oversight
• Supply chain reintegration

By consolidating these responsibilities into a single, trained sustainment expert, units would regain the visibility and synchronization needed to maintain accurate operational readiness in a rapidly modernizing Army. This position cannot be an additional duty, nor a temporary assignment, but a permanent one with a purpose‑built sustainment capability.

Most importantly, this role closes the widening gap between accountability and operational readiness; a gap that modern warfare has already proven is no longer synonymous.

Why this matters beyond the motor pool

The next major conflict will not resemble the sustainment environment of the past 20 years. Large‑scale combat operations against peer or near‑peer adversaries will push sustainment systems to their limits and expose any gaps in visibility or synchronization.

Units unable to rapidly identify, validate, redistribute and reintegrate assets will lose operational reach long before they lose combat capability. In this environment, sustainment friction quickly becomes combat friction. Administrative delays turn into operational delays. Invisible equipment becomes invisible readiness.

The Army cannot afford sustainment blind spots hidden behind disconnected systems and outdated organizational structures. Ensuring full asset visibility is no longer simply a matter of accountability; it is a prerequisite for operational endurance in modern warfare.

Capt. Scottie G. J. Huggins is a U.S. Army Quartermaster officer with broad sustainment experience across Stryker, armored, engineer, field artillery and maneuver enhancement formations. He holds advanced degrees in psychology and logistics management, with research interests in asset visibility, sustainment integration, readiness generation, procurement and large-scale combat operations.