NCC Harsh

As supporters of the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act defend the legislation as the best chance in years to pass more than 60 veterans bills, the committee’s top Democrat says Congress should be prepared to abandon the omnibus altogether if lawmakers cannot agree on how to pay for it. Years of bipartisan work on the Major Richard Star Act and dozens of other veterans bills could take a differ...[Read More]

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) delivered USS Albany (SSN 753) to the Navy at Naval Submarine Base New London, returning the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine before the Fourth of July holiday.

The Pentagon will begin annually screening service members for testosterone deficiency, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday, citing the need to ensure troops maintain the “biological foundation” to fight. Under the new program, the secretary said service members aged 30 and older will be tested yearly for testosterone deficiency as part of routine health assessments. Troops under...[Read More]

The U.S. conducted a new wave of strikes against Iran’s coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Wednesday after reimposing a naval blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran threatened to shut off more regional energy exports. The strikes mark the latest escalation of attacks and counterattacks launched by the two sides as they vie for control of the Strait of Hormuz, whi...[Read More]

The U.S. Navy is looking for a family of carrier-based drones that can fulfill a variety of missions, according to a July 14 Request for Information. The sea service “is exploring the industrial base’s capacity to deliver highly capable, autonomous platforms optimized for operations from Ford-class and Nimitz-class Nuclear Aircraft Carriers,” according to the RFI. The response deadline has been se...[Read More]

The Navy this week awarded a $2.2 billion Vessel Construction Management contract to the Jacksonville, Florida-based TOTE Services LLC for the service’s new Medium Landing Ships. The Marine Corps commissioned the new Medium Landing Ships, or LSMs, with an eye toward potential conflicts with China in the Indo-Pacific. Measuring around 100 meters, the smaller, more agile ships were designed for isla...[Read More]

When Marine Corps Air Station New River-based Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 (HMH-461) experienced a critical need for CH-53K King Stallion parts while conducting training in Arizona, Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) filled the requirement within hours, returning the aircraft to mission-capable status at breakneck speed.

The U.S. military can tell commanders how many troops are deployable, how many aircraft are mission-capable and how quickly units can mobilize for combat. As military leaders prepare for wars shaped by drones, artificial intelligence and rapidly shifting battlefield conditions, however, defense experts say the Pentagon still struggles to answer a more difficult question: How do you know whether a ...[Read More]

TriWest Healthcare Alliance officials notified 11,844 beneficiaries of a data breach that may have affected their protected health information. In a letter to one beneficiary dated July 2 and provided to Military Times, TriWest officials said they had discovered a security incident April 16, in which an unauthorized person gained limited, unauthorized access to TriWest information and downloaded i...[Read More]

Col. Frank Cohn, a veteran of the Second World War, Korea and Vietnam, died on July 4 at the age of 100, the Friends of the National WWII Memorial confirmed. He was one month shy of turning 101. Born in Breslau, Germany (present day Wrocław, Poland), the Jewish-born Cohn and his family found refuge in the United States in 1938. Cohn was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, just one month after his ...[Read More]

The U.S. military will begin enforcing a maritime blockade on Iran on Tuesday, the U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said on Monday. The blockade, covering all of Iran’s ports, oil terminals and coastal areas, will be enforced for all vessel traffic — regardless of flag — from 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on July 14, the center said in an advisory. “Any vessel suspected of entering o...[Read More]

Recovery teams from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency traveled over the weekend to China to renew searches for the remains of missing service members ahead of projected budget cuts that would severely curtail future missions. The mission to China was expected to last through early September, with an investigative team working in Hunan province while field operations are conducted in Guangshi p...[Read More]