Author: Braxton Taylor

I don’t see military veterans look shocked and appalled all that often. As the transition master coach for Military.com’s Veteran Employment Project, I can tell you most of our users don’t shock all that easily. That is, until I told them they were supposed to research the interviewer on LinkedIn before the interview.Cue the shock. The disdain. The contempt. “That just seems creepy,” a transitioning service member told me recently. “What kind of person reads up on where the interviewer went to college and what their job titles used to be? What kind of job seeker does that?”The employed kind,…

Sarah Cavanaugh was a decorated Marine Corps veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. She received a Bronze Star for pulling her fellow Marines from a burning Humvee, even after the door crushed her hip. When she left the military, she struggled to get VA benefits. Her leg was a constant bother, she needed hearing aids for both ears and she eventually developed lung cancer possibly from the burn pits. Despite all of that, she volunteered for veterans’ retreats, joined a gym and even became the commander of her local VFW. The only problem with Cavanaugh and her post-military life was…

Fine-motor skills are all of those little functions that we do on a daily, even hourly, basis with our fingers and hands. Tying our shoes, buttoning our shirts, typing on the computer are all fine-motor skills. For the defensive shooter, fine-motor skills are also involved in loading the gun, executing the proper trigger press and clearing malfunctions. In fact, take a minute to examine all of the things you do on a daily basis—not just gun related—and you will realize we are using fine-motor skills constantly. What messes everything up is something called the fight-or-flight response. When we are faced…

A Marine sergeant was sentenced to eight years’ confinement, a dishonorable discharge, total forfeiture of pay, and reduction in rank to private after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing a civilian aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, last year, service officials told Military.com.Dakota Honstein pleaded not guilty and was acquitted of the most severe charge — murder, also known as Article 118 in military justice — but was sentenced May 2 for involuntary manslaughter and violation of a lawful general order for wrongfully possessing a firearm on base, which he used to kill the civilian in late January 2024.Service…

Welcome to Ask Lacey, an advice column in which accredited financial counselor and MilMo founder Lacey Langford answers your pressing financial questions. Have a question for Lacey? Submit it here.Q.: How exactly is CRDP taxed? I am a retired Marine. Each month I receive my military pension plus CRDP. It’s my understanding that CRDP is taxed, but what is the mechanism for that tax? On my DFAS retired statement, I have income tax withheld, but when I get my 1099 at the end of the year, it lists my income as only my pension (and not CRDP). So is CRDP…

Ruger debuted its first LC Carbine in 2022, building it in the somewhat surprising chambering choice of 5.7×28 mm and followed up this launch with an LC Carbine in .45 ACP early in 2024. Now, the gunmaker offers a 10 mm-chambered version of the popular LC line. This newest LC Carbine represents a solid choice for home- and self-defense applications and will be a lot of fun at the range and for general recreational shooting. Blowback-operated and featuring a 16.25-inch, threaded barrel, this LC Carbine measures out at just 28.6 inches. At 7 pounds, 4 ounces, the 10 mm model…

Sitting in the Oval Office on Tuesday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a four-star Space Force general and several lawmakers, President Donald Trump made it clear: He’s setting out to finish what former President Ronald Reagan started.Reagan’s 1980s-era proposal for a space-based defense shield against nuclear missiles, dubbed “Star Wars,” fizzled. Now, decades later, Trump has announced a proposal he calls “Golden Dome,” envisioned as a state-of-the-art missile defense system covering the U.S. that could shoot down ballistic, hypersonic and nuclear missiles — even drones — from land and outer space.Trump said during the White House gathering this week that…

A plan to inject $8.5 billion into military quality-of-life initiatives overcame a key hurdle early Thursday morning as House Republicans narrowly approved a sweeping bill to enact President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.The quality-of-life funding is part of $150 billion for the Defense Department that Republicans included in what they are officially calling the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a wide-ranging legislative package that touches everything from taxes to health care to border policy.The Pentagon funding could provide a much-needed boost to barracks maintenance, military health care and other areas that directly affect the well-being of service members. But military and…

Steven Rinella talks with Matt James, Brody Henderson, Spencer Neuharth, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: The ascendancy of Dr. Steve, PhD.; are dire wolves back?; cracked robin eggs; our book Catch A Crayfish, Count the Stars is out now in paperback; alligators killing people; skull morphology; similarities between grey wolves and dire wolves; how similar a carrot is to a human; cloning DNA; Colossal’s dire wolf care manual; how a household somewhere has the dire wolves’ dog momma surrogate; the ghost portion; genetic rescue efforts; transgenics and taxonomy; spurring conversation about the biodiversity crisis; and more. Connect with Steve and The…

The Navy has been in a yearslong struggle to modernize its critically important human resources computer systems that underpin a whole host of vital tasks like pay and promotions.But a contract for what might have been one of the most promising efforts to upgrade the systems just fell victim to billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, according to sources interviewed by Military.com. As a result, a critical and aging server in Tennessee that holds most of the service’s pay and promotion data is operating with no backup in the event of a natural disaster.The contract was…