News

SUBIC BAY, Philippines – As part of the eighth iteration of Exercise Sama Sama 2024, Military Sealift Command (MSC) Far East participated in refueling-at-sea familiarization training aboard the Philippine Navy (PN) frigate BRP Jose Rizal (FF 150), at Subic Bay, Philippines, Oct. 8-9.

Reported sexual assaults in the military dropped by 4% from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2024, the second consecutive year of significant improvement with Defense Department efforts to combat the criminal activity in the ranks. But officials noted that sexual harassment reports rose slightly over the same time period, and many victims remain reluctant to file formal complains, blunting some of the optimi...[Read More]

Some federally employed military spouses are still grappling with uncertainty in their careers, as agencies aren’t consistently exempting them from the return-to-office mandate for federal workers, according to advocates and lawmakers. And lawmakers are demanding immediate action to make the exemption clear to federal agencies. “Despite the guidance to agencies, many military families have yet to ...[Read More]

Military store officials are watching closely to see what effects tariffs may have on their stores and customers, and they’re trying to minimize extra costs. Officials with military exchanges expect tariffs to affect their stores, including the availability and cost of certain items. In some cases, suppliers have been stockpiling inventory ahead of time as they wait to see the impact. President Do...[Read More]

Military suicides increased again in 2023, continuing a steady and concerning rise in self-inflicted deaths among servicemembers over more than a decade, according to statistics released by the Defense Department on Thursday. Pentagon officials downplayed the significance of the 6% rise in suicides from 2022 to 2023 (the latest data available), calling the rise not statistically significant. But t...[Read More]

Army wife Vanessa Seals, who was five months pregnant at the time, was forced to sleep on an air mattress for more than three weeks while her family waited for the delivery of their household goods at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia. “As you can imagine, it’s quite uncomfortable,” said Seals, mother of three young children ages 5, 3 and 14 months, on March 12. While the movers who packed and loaded ...[Read More]

Army wife Vanessa Seals, who was five months pregnant at the time, was forced to sleep on an air mattress for more than three weeks while her family waited for the delivery of their household goods at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia. “As you can imagine, it’s quite uncomfortable,” said Seals, mother of three young children ages 5, 3 and 14 months, on March 12. While the movers who packed and loaded ...[Read More]

The Defense Department will begin screening troops for gender dysphoria during their routine physicals in an effort to boot transgender service members from the armed forces. In a memo published Thursday, the Pentagon’s acting head of personnel and readiness tasked unit commanders to help implement the policy “immediately.” “Commanders who are aware of service members in their units with gender dy...[Read More]