Author: Braxton Taylor

Congress’ probe into the safety of the military’s V-22 Osprey last summer following multiple deadly crashes has been stalled for nearly a year, angering Gold Star family members who lost loved ones aboard the aircraft.A Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform panel held a hearing in June questioning Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, the head of Naval Air Systems Command, and other defense officials about the more than 50 service members’ lives claimed during training missions on the controversial tiltrotor aircraft.At the end of that hearing, then-subcommittee chairman Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., disappointed in the lack of answers for grieving families…

It started when Jennifer Glick, an Army criminal investigator, was told her nearly 2-year-old daughter Evie had tripped, fallen and hit her head at the Navy’s Ford Island, Hawaii, child development center in late summer 2022.Glick and her military husband were getting ready to leave Hawaii the following year when she said the Navy Family Advocacy Program called with troubling news: Evie may have been physically abused at the CDC. But that was all they were told, Glick told Military.com in a recent interview, and when they requested details of the alleged abuse, videos and information on how and whether…

Jennifer Barnhill is a columnist for Military.com writing about military families.In January, the Trump administration issued an executive order requiring the Department of Defense to come up with a proposal that would determine the feasibility of creating a program letting military families take federal funding and spend it on the school of their choice, including helping pay for religious schools, while possibly reducing funding for Defense Department facilities that rank among the highest performing nationally.Some military families who want to be able to access outside schools have done so, depending on local laws, but no national proposal has been put…

The Army has approved a series of revisions to its physical fitness test, recalibrating performance benchmarks in a modest and symbolic move that reflects mounting internal and political pressure over how the military measures fitness.What began as an initiative to introduce gender-neutral standards for combat arms roles has gradually evolved into a servicewide adjustment. The new Army Fitness Test, or AFT, which will take effect in June, introduces incremental changes — some stricter, some more lenient — but in most cases, little different from the standards already in place.The revisions follow a congressional mandate aimed at raising baseline requirements for…

This recipe is the perfect thing to make after a spring outing in the forests of the Northeast. Wait for large, mature ramp leaves to make this, ensuring that you only snip off one leaf per plant when harvesting so that the plant can rebound and grow again next year. To learn more about harvesting and cultivating ramps, check out this article. Wrapping the fish can be a little fiddly, but using butcher’s twine or toothpicks makes it easier. The delicate, wild garlic-infused flesh of the fish after cooking makes it very much worth the trouble! Read the full article…

Military families whose drinking water became contaminated with jet fuel in 2021 on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, have won their cases against the U.S. Navy, with a federal judge confirming Thursday that the residents were exposed to an environmental hazard and sickened by it.U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi said that under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the Navy was liable for the spill at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility near Honolulu and should pay damages for pain and suffering — and, in some cases, future medical expenses and economic loss — to the families.”By a preponderance…

Military spouses are the unsung heroes of service life. They manage households, support their families, work or often put their own careers on hold to follow their service members across the country or around the world. In the shuffle of deployments, PCS moves, job changes and raising kids, one crucial thing often gets left behind — their own retirement savings.You shouldn’t count solely on your service member’s retirement to build your financial future. Fortunately for military spouses, you can still save for your own retirement, even with challenges such as unemployment and underemployment that come with military life. Whether you’re…

Lawmakers tried to hash out details of the Army’s transformation plan during an open hearing again on Thursday, as the defense-industry executive nominated to be the service’s undersecretary took questions at his confirmation hearing.Anduril employee Mike Obadal, who retired as an Army colonel in 2023, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee a week after his former service released a plan to slash programs, civilian and senior military positions, and more—and did so with no advance notice to Congress, whose support is needed if the proposal is to move ahead.There are “a number of topline issues, that now we need…

CCI Ammunition is coming out with the all-new Suppressor Max 22 LR cartridge. This small-game load is designed for optimal accuracy, terminal performance and noise reduction when fired through a firearm equipped with a rimfire suppressor. The hollowpoint bullet ensures effective segmentation on impact, even at its low-decibel, subsonic 970 fps muzzle velocity.  “Whisper-quiet yet powerful rimfire performance is now within reach,” said CCI’s Rimfire Product Line Manager Steve Monniere. “CCI Suppressor Max delivers excellent accuracy, and our proven segmenting hollow-point bullet also provides exceptional terminal performance. More and more shooters and hunters are opting for suppressed firearms, and they…

If not for a Spanish fisherman who saw something and said something, the U.S. Air Force might never have recovered a missing hydrogen bomb during the Cold War.On Jan. 17, 1966, Francisco Simo y Orts was going about his day in the coastal town of Palomares when a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber and KC-135 Stratotanker collided during a refueling mission. The subsequent explosions caused Orts to look skyward, where he saw what he believed to be a crew member strapped to a parachute. Orts reported the sighting, but although he had no way of knowing it at the time,…