Staff Sgt. Davonte Hardaway, who served as a basic military training instructor with the 324th Training Squadron, is accused of having “improper relationships with students.” The charges include three allegations of “prohibited sexual activity with students.” The San Antonio Express-News first reported on the court-martial against Hardaway on Thursday.

Hardway has been with the 324th Training Squadron since October 2023, but is “not currently performing MTI duties,” according to a spokesperson for the 37th Training Wing. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations investigated allegations against the training instructor and the wing’s commander referred the case to trial by special court-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

According to the Air Force’s legal docket, Hardaway is being charged for Article 92, unprofessional relationship and Article 93a, prohibited activities with recruit or trainee. His trial is set to start June 8 and run through June 13. He faces multiple penalties if found guilty, including forfeiture of part of his pay, a bad conduct discharge or reduction in his rank.

The training wing noted that the charges against Hardaway — who the Air Force noted is innocent until proven guilty — come from part of the Air Force provision regarding professional relationships, which “prohibit instructors from developing personal relationships with trainees within six months after a trainee completes initial skills training and reports to their first permanent duty station or follow-on training program.” 

The 37th Training Wing did not provide additional details on the charges or Hardaway’s service record, citing a need to not interfere with ongoing proceedings.

Hardaway is the first training instructor to face such charges in more than a decade. In the early 2010s, the Air Force was rocked by a massive scandal involving nearly three dozen instructors at Lackland Air Force Base. They were investigated for allegations of having sexually assaulted or abused more than 60 trainees between 2009-2011. Multiple commanders were relieved of their positions during the course of the investigation. 

The 37th Training Wing, based out of Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, is part of the Air Education and Training Command and is the largest training unit in the Air Force. More than 30,000 recruits train there each year.

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A recent Marine Administrative Message, or MARADMIN, announced that Marines are allowed to use the M17 Romeo red dot optic for Combat Pistol Program qualifications. These types of optics use Light-Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, to project a dot at the point of aim. Military Times was the first to report on the MARADMIN.

This is the first time that Marines can use an optic during pistol qualifications, said Maj. Hector Infante, a spokesman for Training and Education Command. The optics must be purchased by their units and installed by unit armorers. Marines are also allowed to use the optic in combat.

“Red dot optics have been shown to improve pistol lethality,” Infante told Task & Purpose. “Accordingly, some units that routinely operate with pistols have been authorized to use unit funds to procure approved red dot sights as organizational equipment.”

Though all Marines train with rifles in boot camp, far fewer do so with pistols. Marines who are issued a pistol because of their ranks, billets or as part of the Marine Corps Physical Security Program are required to qualify on the weapons, Infante said.

The Marine Corps has allowed Marines to use the red dot optic on the pistol range to make sure they train and qualify with the same weapon they will use in the field, said.

Made by Sig Sauer, the M17 Romeo red dot optic is designed to be used on the U.S. military’s largely identical M17 and M18 pistols, which are also produced by the company. 

The Combat Pistol Program was first introduced in 2012 in which Marines fire at targets at ranges of 7, 15, and 25 yards. To pass, Marines must score at least 264 out of 400 points.

The change is the latest example of the Marine Corps adopting combat optics to help Marines become better shooters. It’s been more than a decade since Marine recruits at boot camp switched from iron sights on the rifle range to optics.

Last year, a Corps spokesman confirmed that deploying Marines would be equipped with an advanced smart scope that can be mounted on an M4 carbine to help shoot down small drones.

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The new memo also adds a requirement of a sworn statement of religious faith, with a warning that a false claim could result in “disciplinary action” under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

For years, the military has granted waivers to shaving rules as religious accommodations to service members from faiths including Sikh, Muslim, Christian, and Norse Pagan. But in September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated to hundreds of generals and admirals that he was skeptical about religious waivers.

“We don’t have a military full of Nordic Pagans,” Hegseth said during a speech in Quantico, Virginia. “But unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refused to call B.S. and enforce standards, or leaders who felt that they were not allowed to enforce standards. Both are unacceptable.”  

On March 11, Hegseth released a memo that appears to significantly raise the requirements under which troops can apply for religious accommodations for beards. After it was posted on the unofficial Army subreddit on Tuesday, a Pentagon official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the memo is authentic.

All currently approved religious waivers for beards must be reevaluated under the new guidelines within 90 days, the memo says.

The new policy appears to increase the scope of reasons that local leaders can cite to support or oppose a waiver, while moving the bar for a waiver’s approval into the upper reaches of military leadership.

A waiver, the memo says, must be approved by military department secretaries, with that authority delegated no lower than the chief of personnel for each service. However, the application must go through several layers of lower-level officials before it reaches the decision maker, including an applicant’s local commander.

And a member’s “first-line supervisors” and unit commanders will have more leeway to add input, including their view of “contradictory or inconsistent statements and conduct, and any evidence suggesting that the request may be based on personal preference or convenience,” according to the memo.

Troops must provide sworn statements and other supporting evidence to prove that their religious beliefs include growing beards, the memo says.

“False statements may be subject to disciplinary action under Article 107 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or denial of accession, as appropriate,” the memo says.

Unit commanders are required to submit a description of the jobs that troops requesting religious waivers for beards perform, including the likelihood that they will need to wear masks, helmets, firefighting respirators, and other protective equipment, according to the memo.

Commanders must also include all information about the “operational impact of an accommodation,” including an explanation from a subject matter expert of how such a waiver would affect mission readiness, safety implications, and the “feasibility of alternative accommodations,” an attachment to the memo says. 

Those making the decision on such waivers must consider input from troops’ first-line supervisors on the “character of the individual and adherence to service values,” according to the memo.

The military branches have until early April to implement the new guidance in each service, the memo says.

Sincerely held beliefs

Since 2009, some Sikhs have been granted waivers to have beards while serving in the military. It is unclear how the new policy will affect them, said Marissa Rossetti, senior staff attorney for the Sikh Coalition, a group that has advocated for Sikhs in the military who want to wear turbans, beards, and other visible signs of their faith.

Two of the biggest changes in the new policy are the requirements for troops to submit sworn statements and commanders to describe how granting religious waivers would affect their unit’s mission, Rossetti told Task & Purpose.

“I think ultimately this is a lot stricter, and I do think we won’t know exactly how it plays out until it is implemented on the ground,” Rossetti said.

While it remains to be seen exactly how requests for religious waivers will be evaluated, Sikhs should have no issue proving the sincerity of their religious beliefs, she said.

“The Sikh belief is that facial hair really is an article of faith, and for a lot of Sikhs, they would rather die than shave their facial hair,” Rossetti said. “It’s something that, for them, is of utmost importance to their beliefs.”

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“In Iraq, AH-64s [Apache helicopters] have been striking against Iranian-aligned militia groups to make sure that we suppress any threat in Iraq against us, forces or U.S. interests,” Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Thursday.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Caine did not elaborate on how many combat missions Apache helicopters have flown in Iraq since U.S. operations against Iran on Feb. 28.

Nor did Caine specify which Iranian-backed militia groups U.S. helicopters have attacked.

Since the start of U.S. military operations against Iran, named Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad has been repeatedly attacked by drones and missiles. The embassy issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Iranian-backed militias have “encouraged and conducted widespread attacks on U.S. citizens and targets associated with the United States throughout Iraq,” including attacks on Baghdad’s international zone, where the embassy is located.

For decades, the United States and Iran have been fighting a shadow war that accelerated following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. The Defense Department has estimated that Iranian-backed groups killed more than 600 U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.

The undeclared war between the two countries has continued throughout the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State group, or ISIS, which began in 2014. U.S. troops have battled militia groups supported by Iran, including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Harakat-al-Nujaba. U.S. airstrikes have also targeted facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the region.

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of Iranian-backed groups, began attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East. The group claimed credit for a January 2024 drone attack against a U.S. outpost in Jordan that killed three soldiers.

Also on Thursday, Caine told reporters that the Air Force’s venerable A-10 Thunderbolt II, commonly called the Warthog, is now part of U.S. military efforts to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil flows.

“The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Strait of Hormuz,” Caine said.

Last week, concerns that Iran could try to use sea mines to stop oil tankers from transiting the strait. As of Thursday, the U.S. military had destroyed 44 Iranian vessels used to lay mines, Caine said.

Traditionally, the A-10 has provided life-saving close air support to ground troops, oftentimes during intense battles. Earlier this year, A-10s took part in airstrikes against ISIS in Syria in response to the killings of two soldiers with the Iowa National Guard and a civilian translator in December.

Although the Air Force has repeatedly tried to retire the A-10, Congress has mandated that the service keep 103 of the aircraft through the end of the fiscal year, which runs until Sept. 30.

UPDATE: 3.19.2026; This article was updated after publication to note that Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs are actively engaged in combat operations in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Sgt. 1st Class Christina Larson was a combat medic with the 911th Forward Surgical Team in 2015 at Kabul’s main airport, then known as Hamid Karzai International. A car bomb attack against the base that January leveled buildings and blew in the windows to Larson’s barracks room, where she was in bed when the explosion went off.

“I remember thinking, ‘Am I dead? Am I alive? Am I going to die? Where’s my tourniquet? Do I have my arms? What is going on right now?’ I was very disoriented,” Larson told Task & Purpose.

Within minutes, she gathered herself, grabbed her rifle, and ran to help other injured soldiers. What she didn’t realize was that she had suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, in the blast that would leave her with a host of medical issues. 

At a Feb. 20 ceremony at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, surrounded by family, friends, fellow soldiers, and mentors, Larson received the delayed Purple Heart during a belated retirement ceremony. Larson served on active duty and in both part-time and full-time reserve roles in Illinois for 15 years before medical issues from the Kabul blast forced her to medically retire in 2024.

She received the award from Brig. Gen. Todd Traver, the deputy commanding general of the 807th Theater Medical Command, during a belated formal retirement ceremony. In 2015, Traver was the commander of a medical battalion at Bagram, Afghanistan that oversaw Larson’s team when it was hit by the car bomb, the Army said in a release. 

Larson told Task & Purpose she had come to view her injuries as many veterans wounded in combat often do, that they weren’t ‘bad’ enough for a Purple Heart.

“But I know when it was brought to me that I should have one, I remember initially thinking, ‘I don’t deserve a Purple Heart,’” Larson said. “What do I get a Purple Heart for? I have all my limbs. I’m not in a wheelchair.”

During the process of medically retiring, a civilian in her unit suggested Larson was eligible for a Purple Heart. The idea sent her down the rabbit hole of finding paperwork to prove she was present for the attack and documenting her injuries.

Larson said that, looking back, she thinks the award’s long delay was due to a mix of issues, including the military’s evolving culture around TBIs and early mistakes by her unit in Afghanistan that overlooked her eligibility.

Lt. Col. Kristin Porter, a spokesperson for the 807th Theater Medical Command, said the Army Reserve “cannot speculate as to why the chain of command in theater did not submit an award for the soldier while deployed.”

In the post-9/11 wars, overlooked or delayed Purple Hearts for injuries with slow-developing symptoms like TBI have been widespread. More than 50 Purple Hearts were eventually awarded to troops after a January 2020 missile attack in Iraq, most for TBI-like injuries, despite initial reports from Pentagon officials that the attack produced few injuries.

As Army officials reviewed Larson’s records for the Purple Heart, they also realized she was eligible for a Combat Action Badge.

“The Purple Heart was ultimately awarded based on a comprehensive review of official records and more than a decade of consistent medical documentation, reflecting the Army’s commitment to ensuring soldiers receive appropriate recognition, even when delays occur,” Porter said.

The attack

On the morning of the attack, Larson was supposed to go for a run with her commander, but he sent an early-morning text to tell her he was sleeping in. While Larson said she wasn’t the type to go back to bed, she decided to lay down.

“Last time I looked at my clock, it was like 5:46 in the morning,” she said. “I just closed my eyes, and then all of a sudden, all I remember is the sound of glass shattering.”

At Larson’s retirement ceremony, Traver described the IED blast as “catastrophic,” leaving “not a single building” near the airport without damage.

“Hardened structures were shifted on their foundations. Fire doors were blown off their hinges. Windows were shattered across the base,” he said. “Shrapnel from the explosion was later found on the airport runway, more than 1,000 meters from the point of detonation. After the attack, the largest identifiable piece of the truck that could be found was smaller than a basketball.”

After the explosion, Larson remembered her ears ringing and her head pounding. Her barracks building was completely blown out — the window blown open, shelves collapsed, and “I had landed on top of all of it,” she recalled.

Despite being in a daze, Larson gathered her medical equipment and M-16 and went to check on NATO civilians on base, helping one injured woman as she limped to the hospital.

“In the immediate aftermath of the blast, amid confusion, alarms, and uncertainty, her first instinct was not self-preservation. It was duty,” Traver said. “She did exactly what we ask our medical soldiers to do: she ran toward the mission.”

Later, as she walked across the tattered compound, she saw the area where she and her commander would have been running. The area lay in ruins with a lawnmower blade sticking out of the side of a shipping container.

“It could have easily killed or decapitated one of us,” she said.

A ‘loosely managed’ TBI

Coming out of her deployment, Larson said she was diagnosed with migraines, post-traumatic stress disorder, and, later, a TBI. While the military’s TBI diagnostic tools have improved in the last decade, symptoms can take weeks to develop.

“At the time, they had just diagnosed me with a bad headache, basically suggesting [mild] TBI, but they didn’t have the diagnostic capabilities there to be able to say ‘yes, you have a brain injury,’” she said. “They put me on a brain injury protocol so for two days, I basically lay in my room. No screen, no stimulation, trying to rest.”

Larson said for the next few years, her symptoms “were loosely managed” with migraine medication. Later, she turned to Botox for treatment because she wanted to avoid side effects like drowsiness while taking care of her newborn daughter.

She was medically retired with conditions that include global amnesia, medication-resistant migraines, and peripheral nerve damage, according to the Army release.

According to the National Purple Heart Honor Mission, among the 2 million Americans who have received a Purple Heart, Larson is one of fewer than 500 women, most in post-9/11 combat operations, according to the Army release.

“We all look at the Purple Heart as the award nobody wants, and it’s true,” she said. “But I think some of the more politically minded leaders see it as a mark of being ‘damaged goods.’  I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but there are many who should have received one and haven’t.

Update, 3/19/2026: This story was updated to clarify that Sgt. 1st Class Christina Larson was medically retired from service in 2024 due to injuries sustained in the 2015 car bomb attack. A formal retirement ceremony for Larson, which included the awarding of the Purple Heart, took place in February 2026.

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The Ford left Norfolk, Virginia, last June, and its crew has seen combat in two hemispheres during a deployment that could soon be among the longest in the Navy since the Vietnam War. 

The fire broke out in the ship’s main laundry spaces on March 12, and a sailor was medically evacuated to shore the following day due to injuries sustained during damage control efforts, said Cmdr. Joe Hontz, a spokesman for 5th Fleet. 

More than 200 sailors were treated for smoke inhalation and later returned to duty, according to USNI news, which also reported that the fire destroyed more than 100 crew members’ beds.

An Associated Press reporter shared on social media that the fire was extinguished in a few hours but required 30 hours of damage control, which typically involves tasks including draining water and clearing damage.

U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, announced on March 12 that there had been no damage to the Ford’s propulsion plant and the ship remained fully operational as part of ongoing air strikes on Iran. No further information was immediately available on the extent of damage to the ship.

The cause of the fire, which CENTCOM said was not due to combat, is under investigation.

Since the Ford left Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on June 25, 2025, it has deployed to the Caribbean as part of the U.S. military building in the region, leading up to the special operations forces mission in January to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The ship’s deployment was then extended so that it could support ongoing operations against Iran, which began on Feb. 28.

Now the ship’s deployment could be extended again until May, according to the New York Times. That would extend the Ford’s current deployment to at least 310 days, rivaling the odyssey-like cruises of both the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Nimitz, which stayed at sea for 295 and 341 days, respectively, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Ford has also been battling to keep its toilets working. The plumbing issues aboard the ship have garnered so much attention that the Navy addressed the matter in a Feb. 26 news release.

“During this deployment, Gerald R. Ford’s vacuum collection, holding, and transfer (VCHT) system has processed more than six million toilet flushes,” the news release says. “Ship leadership reports that clog incidents are addressed promptly by trained damage control and engineering personnel, with minimal downtime.” 

Hard conditions for crew

Extended deployments can be taxing on sailors, said retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who

“Long and extended deployments gradually wear on a crew, leading to mistakes and missteps no matter how vigilant the leadership,” Stavridis told Task & Purpose. “This is particularly true after about six months of high optempo free time.”

In January, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle was asked during a media roundtable about the possibility that the Ford could be extended so that it could deploy to the Middle East.

“I think the Ford, from its capability perspective, would be an invaluable option any military thing the president wants to do, but if it requires an extension, you know it’s going to get some pushback from the CNO, and let’s see if something else I can do,” Caudle replied.

He also said he is concerned about the effects of extended deployments on both ships and their crews.

“People want to have some type of certainty that they’re going to do a seven- month deployment,” Caudle said. “And when it goes past that, that disrupts lives. It disrupts funerals that were planned, marriages that were planned, babies that were planned. So the human element of extension, I’m not a big fan of, obviously.”

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A March 10 memo issued by the Defense Department’s Personal Property Activity, or PPA, warned that “the operation in the Middle East is causing severe, widespread, and rapidly evolving disruptions to air and sea shipments. Airport closures, suspensions of port operations, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and significant security risks are preventing vessel and airline ability to safely transit the area.”

A Pentagon official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the interruptions could affect shipments for over 1,000 service members including many moving to new assignments as a Permanent Change of Station, or PCS.

“Delays and routing changes associated with international household goods (HHG) and unaccompanied baggage (UB) shipments are expected,” the memo said. The PPA memo was sent to companies that contract with the military to move household goods and vehicles for military families who PCS.

“We are aware of family members whose shipments have been impacted, and service members that have been impacted by Operation Epic Fury,” said Maj. Matt Visser, a spokesperson for the PPA, told Task & Purpose. “We are being proactive.”

The PPA issued a “stop movement” order on March 6 for shipments overseas, preventing household goods and unaccompanied baggage from being transported in countries near ongoing combat operations, including Bahrain, Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

PPA officials said in the memo normal shipments to or from those countries would resume when the commander of U.S. Central Command determines that the area “is safe for such shipments to resume.”

Visser encouraged families PCSing to call 1-833-MIL-MOVE or email [email protected].

Weeks of delays for overseas moves 

A moving industry official confirmed that families are facing delays. 

“Even though this conflict is […] in Iran right now, we are going to be seeing the impacts domestically as well,” said Katie McMichael, executive director of Movers for America, a coalition of 1,100 companies contracted by the military to handle PCS moves.

McMichael said military families moving abroad and within the U.S. should prepare for delays because of shipment suspensions abroad and heightened base security measures at home. 

“For people overseas, it can definitely be weeks. They have a blanket suspension to certain countries right now. They’re dealing with shipments on a case-by-case basis,” McMichael told Task & Purpose. “On the domestic side, it could be hours in some cases, if a base is really busy. We might have drivers that sit in line all day, and they might have to turn around and come back the next day because they just can’t get through the line.”

The Pentagon declined to give an estimate on the average delays that service members are facing.

Visser said there hasn’t been a complete termination of all movement, adding that “some shipments are still moving as local conditions allow.”

Stateside, families can see delays if their civilian movers have trouble getting on base. On March 2, the Department of Defense suspended the Trusted Traveler Program, which streamlines access to military bases for vetted contractors and vendors.

Movers for America told customers in an advisory that in some instances, delivery drivers are waiting over two hours “which kickstarts a ripple effect of delayed deliveries and pickups.”

As the military enters “peak” PCS season, which begins in April and runs through August, McMichael said they’re anticipating “steep delays” for domestic moves if base security measures continue. The delays could be different depending on the size of the base. For instance, a larger installation with more daily traffic and more troops PCSing could see longer delays.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth established the Personal Property Activity earlier this year as part of the Pentagon’s overhaul for PCS moves. The PPA contracts with moving companies to ship household goods and vehicles for nearly 300,000 service members who PCS across the U.S. and overseas each year, Hegseth said in a January 2026 video.

McMichael said movers will have to pay higher prices, but it won’t impact servicemembers whose moves are covered by the Defense Department.  However families that opt to hire their own movers with a personally procured move — which the Pentagon says nearly 30% of troops do each year — should expect to see “higher oil prices reflected in the rates you’re going to get on the commercial market,” she said.

“Moving companies, they are just as frustrated as the customers right now at getting these shipments moved. I think just stay in close contact with your moving company,” McMichael said.

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Troops tapped for early testing of the new carbine should start to get their hands on the first XM8s as soon as October, an Army spokesperson told Task & Purpose. The XM8 shares internal firing components with the Army’s new M7 rifle, firing a 6.8 x 51mm round.

“A carbine is a compact, lightweight version of a rifle, designed for enhanced maneuverability and ease of handling in confined spaces or vehicles,” the spokesperson said.

The shorter carbine is the latest model in the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon program, or NGSW, the Army’s generational effort to retire the venerable M4 and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon among units most likely to see direct close combat. 

The Army plans to spend more than $7 billion in the next 10 years to field the NSGW’s two guns with matching suppressors and optics as the primary weapons for units that include infantry, scouts, combat medics, forward observers, combat engineers, and special forces.

Built by Sig Sauer, the NGSW’s M7 and larger M250 were first rolled out to units for initial testing in 2024. But with the XM8, the NGSW has now gone from a pair of firearms to a throuple. The XM8’s design reflects feedback from soldiers and was developed under the label of the M7 PIE, or Product Improvement Effort, said Sig Sauer product manager for rifles and suppressors Joshua Shoemaker.

“It represents their refinements and optimizations based on the initial fielding of the M7,” Shoemaker told Task & Purpose. “We identified several opportunities to improve the handling, decrease the weight, increase the balance, and advance the already improved performance of the system.” 

Similar to M16-to-M4 switch

The Army last gave its frontline soldiers a shorter carbine in place of a longer rifle when it largely replaced the M16A4 with the M4 as its standard combat weapon in the first decade of the post-9/11 wars. The Marine Corps followed suit in the mid-2010s.

The XM8 is just over 32 inches long overall, compared to 37 inches for the M7, with a barrel length dropped from 13 to 11 inches and its suppressor from 7 to 6 inches, Shoemaker said.

The carbine is also lighter than the M7, Shoemaker said. Without the suppressor, the XM8 weighs 7.33 pounds while the M7 weighs 8.36 pounds. The carbine’s suppressor shaves down to 1.31 pounds from the M7’s 1.46 pounds.

The carbine also comes with a fixed stock after soldiers said they preferred it to the M7’s folding stock, Shoemaker said. 

“The folding stock, although a nice feature, is just not as robust as a thick stock will be,” Shoemaker said.

The carbine also has a softer butt pad and a more rigid handguard for optics and other mounted equipment.

“The new XM8 variant delivers an enhanced capability, particularly for roles where a more compact, maneuverable system is advantageous,” Shoemaker said.

Early M7 criticism

The term carbine is, to some extent, one of art rather than science in firearms, but is widely viewed as a compact rifle with a barrel under 20 inches. The M16A4’s barrel, as an example, was 20 inches, while the M4’s is 14.5.

The Army’s efforts to field the XM8 come after an Army officer leveled several criticisms last year against the Next Generation Squad Weapon rifle, then known as the XM7, which he argued showed that the weapon was “unfit for use as a modern service rifle.”

Army Capt. Braden Trent presented the findings of his research into rifles last April during the Modern Day Marine exhibition in Washington, D.C. He said he had found the rifle’s weight made it hard for soldiers to maneuver with it, and its 20-round magazine does not provide soldiers with enough ammunition for combat.

Both the Army and Sig Sauer have disputed Trent’s conclusions.

The Marine Corps has said it will not adopt the M7 in favor of sticking with an updated variation of the M4, the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.

“The Marine Corps will retain the M27 for our close combat formations as it best aligns with our unique service requirements, amphibious doctrinal employment of weapons, and distinct modernization priorities, while ensuring seamless interoperability across the Joint force and with coalition partners,” a Marine Corps spokesperson told Task & Purpose in February.

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One of the organizers is Connor Kuehl, who said he was aimless when he enlisted in the Army in 2013 and met Marzan. Kuehl’s father wasn’t at home at the time, he said, and the senior soldier became the father figure who had been missing in his life. 

“He found out where you were in life, and he would literally sit down on a white board and help you paint a picture of where your life was: What’s your family situation; what’s your education, your career, your goals for military career, civilian career; what do you want your life to look like, and what does it look like now,” Kuehl told Task & Purpose. “I’ve used that framework ever since then.”

A Signal Corps data operations warrant officer, Marzan, 54, was one of six Army Reserve soldiers killed when an Iranian drone struck a U.S. facility at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. All six soldiers were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, a Reserve unit based in Des Moines, Iowa. The 103rd, a 7,000-soldier unit spread across six states, provides logistical support for food, water, ammunition, and other supplies and equipment, according to the Army Reserve.

The drone attack is under investigation.

Travel costs for final goodbye

Marzan’s death has revealed how wide his influence was across the 103rd. Ashley Kopf, whose husband served with Marzan, said that between 60 and 75 current and former service members have indicated that they would like to attend Marzan’s funeral.

Of those, she said, between 25 and 30 have said they would face financial difficulties making the trip.

To help, Kuehl and Kopf have organized online fundraising efforts to defray travel costs for soldiers and civilians, with a goal of $65,000. Any money beyond that will go to the families of all six fallen 103rd soldiers, along with some held back to defray costs for troops still deployed who want to visit the gravesites when they return.

Working with Marzan’s family, Kuehl launched a GoFundMe. The non-profit group Salute To The Fallen is also raising funds for the unit.

‘He was the first phone call’

Kopf’s husband, Sgt. 1st Class William Kopf, served with Marzan in the 103rd Sustainment Command. She described Marzan and his wife, Tina, as the unit’s “parents.”

“They provided a place for soldiers that were away from home, that didn’t have family there, the opportunity to have a family there in Iowa,” Kopf told Task & Purpose. “They opened their home for family gatherings, baby showers, and wedding receptions, and all sorts of those things. Plenty of 103rd cookouts and things happened there.”

As the “surrogate dad” for many people in the unit, Marzan was often the first person whom soldiers called whenever they needed advice about their careers and other issues, Kopf said.

“I know for my husband, he was the first phone call. If you were facing something in your career or needed to make a decision, his first response was always: ‘Let me check with Marzan. Let me see what Marzan says,’” Kopf said. 

The number of soldiers whom Marzan mentored, said Kuehl, has been “mind-boggling.”

Marzan, he said, seemed to believe in soldiers before they even believed in themselves.

“He didn’t care if you didn’t think you had potential or if you had tried to set goals before,” Kuehl said. “He was just very motivated to see others succeed around him.”

Marzan’s death has left “a lot of people hurting for his loss,” said Kuehl, who added it would be meaningful for them to have some sense of closure. 

“He taught me leadership and he taught me accountability, and that everybody should live up to their potential – and if you aren’t trying to live up to your potential, that’s shame on you,” Kuehl said. “Everybody should always push themselves to live up to their potential. It’s greater than they think.”

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A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command confirmed Monday that at least 200 U.S. troops had been wounded in the nearly three weeks of fighting. Injuries were reported among troops based in the Middle East. According to Central Command officials, the overwhelming majority of wounded have returned to duty, roughly 180. However, 10 service members were reported as having “serious” injuries from Iranian retaliatory attacks in the days since the United States and Israel launched offensives on Feb. 28. 

The vast majority of troop injuries are traumatic brain injury-related, Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday. However, as Task & Purpose previously reported, formally diagnosing TBIs in the immediate aftermath of an incident can be difficult since symptoms may appear weeks after the fact.

The number jumped from a week ago, when the Pentagon reported 140 troops had been wounded in the war, indicating the pace and intensity of the fighting. Combat operations continue daily, with forces in Middle Eastern countries, at sea, and in the skies taking part in strikes, and Iran continuing to fire back, despite attacks targeting its missile and drone infrastructure. 

U.S. officials did not offer a breakdown of which nations the service members were wounded in, the service branch they belonged to or their roles in the conflict. Since the start of the war, Iran has targeted U.S. bases in multiple Middle Eastern countries with attack drones and missiles. Explosions have been seen at or near bases in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan. Officials with Central Command did not elaborate on the nature of the injuries, but ABC News reported that troops have received shrapnel wounds, burns, and traumatic brain injuries. 

In the first three weeks of fighting, 13 American service members have died. Six were killed in Shuiba, Kuwait, after an Iranian drone struck an outpost. One soldier died days after being wounded in a March 1 attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. This past week, six airmen died after their KC-135 refueling tanker crashed in western Iraq. Central Command officials are investigating the crash but have ruled out hostile or friendly fire as a cause. 

Wounded troops have been moved out of the region and transported to medical facilities in Europe and the United States, including Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Walter Reed Medical Center. 

U.S. officials say that American warplanes have hit more than 7,000 Iranian targets since the beginning of the war’s air campaign. According to monitoring groups, more than 1,400 military personnel and civilians have been killed in Iran.

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Just five years into its service in 1980, the ship was the setting and in some ways the star of “The Final Countdown,” a sci-fi time travel film in which the ship and its air wing are transported back to Dec 6, 1941. The next day, of course, would be the attack on Pearl Harbor. Would the Nimitz and its sailors, wielding advanced Cold War tech and firepower, change history?

No movie spoilers here, but this week the Navy announced the Nimitz will get another crack at time travel, of sorts.  The Navy confirmed over the weekend that the retirement date of the Nimitz will leap forward at least 10 months.

Previously slated to be decommissioned in May and already past its “final cruise” last December, the carrier will be kept in service until at least March 2027. Breaking Defense first reported on the carrier’s service extension.

A contract for procurement for the ship’s deactivation was posted by the Department of Defense on Friday, revealing the delay.

The new timeline for the Nimitz matches up with schedule delays in the delivery of the Ford-class USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy’s newest carrier. That ship has experienced delays in coming online, but is scheduled to enter service in March 2027. 

The carrier is currently on a deployment that was originally intended to take it to its final home port of Naval Station Norfolk. Last week the ship left its home port of Naval Base Kitsap for a deployment to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility. The ship is making its way around South America on its way to Norfolk and will be the one carrier deployed to the command — where several warships are still operating — after the USS Gerald R. Ford left last month. 

Extending the Nimitz also allows the Navy to maintain its force of 11 aircraft carriers. The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford were sent to the Middle East in recent months to support combat operations against Iran. For the Ford, the Navy’s newest carrier, that deployment has stretched 10 months and doesn’t show any signs of stopping. The ship and its crew have been a major part of American force projection, being rushed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean last fall ahead of the attack on Venezuela and then to the Central Command area of responsibility in recent weeks ahead of the attack on Iran. 

The Nimitz first entered service in 1975 and although its deployment to 1941 was fictional (and, for naval history purists, incorrectly put the ship in the Pacific during a period when it was actually homeported in Norfolk with the Atlantic fleet), the ship has been in real world action for much of its real life. In 2025, its air wing carried out strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia and took part in exercises in the South China Sea, where two of its aircraft were lost in separate mishaps within an hour of each other.

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They are: Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington.; and Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky, who were all assigned to the 6th Air Refueling Wing. Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana.; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing.

The 6th Air Refueling Wing is based out of MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. The 121st Air Refueling Wing, an Ohio Air National Guard unit, is based at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio. 

The KC-135 went down while flying over friendly airspace on Thursday, according to U.S. Central Command. Despite rescue efforts, all six onboard were confirmed dead. The tanker was participating in Operation Epic Fury — the military’s name for the war with Iran that started on Feb. 28 — and two aircraft were involved in the incident, according to CENTCOM. 

The Air Force is currently investigating the incident and the identification announcement did not offer any updates or additional details on what happened. US Central Command previously said that the incident “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.” The second aircraft, identified by the Associated Press as another KC-135, landed safely, according to CENTCOM. 

Family, friends and elected representatives paid tribute to the dead crew. John “Alex” Klinner served as the Chief of Squadron Standardizations and Evaluations at the 99th Air Refueling Squadron, according to the 18th Air Force, and oversaw the unit’s Standardization and Evaluation program. He earned his commission in 2017 through the ROTC while studying at Auburn University, according to a GoFundMe set up for his family. He had served as an instructor pilot and evaluator pilot, taking part in operations in Latin America and the Middle East. Savino was the 99th Air Refueling Squadron’s chief of current operations pilots, and commissioned in 2017. She served as a combat systems operator and as a pilot. Pruitt was an assistant flight chief of operations and worked as a KC-135 instructor boom operator, and also entered the Air Force in 2017. She had multiple deployments to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility, supporting multiple operations. 

According to the 121st Air Refueling Wing, Koval worked as a KC-135 instructor pilot, having previously worked in maintenance supporting F-16s, and was remembered as an “avid outdoorsman.” Angst was a pilot with the 166th Air Refueling Squadron. He originally enlisted in the Ohio Air National Guard in 2015, working as a vehicle maintenance technician. He was commissioned in 2021, trained as a pilot and qualified in 2024. He deployed both as an enlisted airman and officer. Simmons, a boom operator, joined the military in 2018, and had three deployments, according to his family. 

A total of 13 American service members have been killed while participating in Operation Epic Fury. Six were killed after an Iranian drone struck a building in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, while another died from injuries sustained after Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia was hit. Those attacks all occurred in the first 48 hours of the war. 

The refueling plane is the fourth U.S. aircraft confirmed lost since the start of the war. Three F-15s were shot down over Kuwait in a friendly fire incident by a Kuwaiti Air Force F-18; all crew were recovered. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, March 13 that five Air force refueling tankers were hit and damaged in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. 

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In fact, the Reaper is a reliable and frequently used weapon in the U.S. military’s arsenal, popping up among forward-deployed forces in conflict zones around the world. Most recently, the Pentagon revealed it was one of several airframes taking part in the war in Iran, or Operation Epic Fury, as the military calls it. The turbo-prop MQ-9 is flying over the Middle East alongside F-15s, F-16s, F-22s, F-35s and bombers such as the B-2 Spirit. And that’s on top of it increasingly being fielded overseas for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Not bad for an uncrewed aerial system whose glory days are seen as the Global War on Terror and are well behind it. 

So why aren’t the MQ-9s being visited by the Grim Reaper? It turns out, because the military just can’t quit it. The longer answer is that the Air Force and Marine Corps are finding new ways to upgrade its capabilities, but in short, the MQ-9 serves a role that isn’t easily replaced. 

From the Predator to the Reaper

The Reaper evolved out of the earlier MQ-1 Predator drone, which itself was a game changer for the Air Force. It was, eventually, armed with missiles, it had a long range and because it was a remotely controlled system, the actual operators were far away and not at risk. So naturally the military wanted to take that and make something more potent. Tests on what would become the MQ-9 started in 2001. Finally in 2007, the Air Force officially put the MQ-9 Reaper into operational service. This one is bigger, better, faster, stronger and has more range than the Predator. 

It can carry a solid mount of firepower, including up to eight Hellfire missiles, and is often fitted with laser guided bombs such as the GBU-12. But its main role is as an ISR platform. And there’s a good reason why: it has serious endurance. It can fly for nearly two days straight when fitted with an extended range kit — even when fully loaded with weapons it can still be in the air for around 14 hours — operate as high as 50,000 feet up and its standard design includes the Multi‑Spectral Targeting System, sensor system that includes infrared, shortwave infrared and a laser designator, among other tools. Even when it’s not directly shooting at something, the Reaper can and is meant to keep an eye on things. 

Since entering service, it took part in everything from anti-piracy operations to targeted strikes on militant leaders. But of course, this is still a weapons and ISR platform better known for flying over Afghanistan, not taking part in large-scale conflict and being fielded for peer-on-peer missions. Right? 

A second life for an aging weapon

Let’s get a few things out of the way: The MQ-9 has its limitations. Even with all of the power they do have, and the improvements over the Predator, Reapers aren’t the fastest aircraft out there, nor the stealthiest. Radar can and does pick it up. During the more than a year and a half of fighting against Houthi militants in and around Yemen, at least 15 Reapers were shot down. These are ISR platforms first and foremost as well, even with their strike capabilities, they aren’t meant to take on peer forces such as China. The Air Force, like a lot of the military, is shifting its strategy and acquisition to deal with that. As such, it’s focusing on updating fighter squadrons abroad, and developing newer, more powerful uncrewed systems, such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (or CCA) program. And other service branches are looking at loitering munitions or similar weapons systems. 

But the MQ-9 operates in a kind of “Goldilocks zone.” For all of the flaws listed above, it’s also a capable ISR platform that can fly for extended periods of time and is proven to work in those tasks. While the military is working on developing new generations of weapons, a costly and time consuming endeavor even before it gets into having them replace platforms currently in service, the MQ-9 is reliable. And that’s why its use has expanded, with the Marine Corps fielding Reapers in recent years. The Air Force set up a permanent deployment of MQ-9s in South Korea, reviving a World War II-era squadron for the reconnaissance mission. Marines sent unarmed Reapers to the Philippines as part of ISR missions in the South China Sea. And recently several Reapers were spotted in Puerto Rico, part of the U.S. military buildup in Operation Southern Spear. The MQ-9 gets around.

Marines have started fielding the MQ-9A Block 5 Extended Range aircraft. This variant has fuel pods on the wings, helping boost its flight time to more than 30 hours. They’re also working on addressing the drone’s stealth flaws, adding an electronic warfare and intelligence collection pod that serves both to make it harder to detect and to help map out enemy’s electronic emitters that would fill up a battlefield — think radios, radars, satellites, all of the tools that make modern warfare possible. Then there are the weapons. Defense manufacturers are working to make the MQ-9B capable of fielding and firing the AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) and AGM-158C LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile), munitions used by strike fighters. 

But that’s the Reaper. It wasn’t meant to be revolutionary or hyper specialized. It was meant to be persistent, and despite the ravages of time and changing threats, it is. 

For more on why the Reaper just won’t die and why the military keeps finding new uses for it, check out our full video on the Task & Purpose YouTube channel here.

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The administration announced the move on Wednesday, saying that the Department of Justice and Department of Veterans Affairs agreed to a plan that would see VA attorneys appointed as special assistant U.S. attorneys, allowing them to start and participate in state court conservatorship and guardianship proceedings, according to joint releases from the department.  

According to the announcement, the initiative is aimed at hundreds of veterans in VA care “who are unable to make their own health care decisions and have no family or legal representation to help them.” The release notes that veterans “who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness” are among that targeted population, although a VA spokesperson stressed the effort is not specifically aimed at veterans experiencing homelessness. Guardians are appointed if a court finds an individual can’t make decisions on their basic needs or safety. The appointed guardian can control one’s finances and living situation, including compelling them to get medical treatment if they deem it necessary. 

They are often initiated by family members, and are hard to terminate. Civil liberties advocates and groups have said that such programs can take away one’s legal rights. The VA and Department of Justice said that such guardianships or conservatorships can help veterans “avoid unwarranted continued hospitalization, protect their rights, and promote appropriate transitions of care from VA hospitalization to other forms of VA care or care in the community.” 

VA spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said that the initiative is aimed at approximately 700 veterans currently in VA hospitals nationwide who are “unable to make their own health care decisions.” He again stressed that the program is not specifically about homeless veterans and is not the VA’s policy towards those experiencing homelessness. 

Despite that, groups advocating for veterans and unhoused Americans have expressed concern over what it could mean for homeless vets. Legal guardianship can help veterans get treatment and care, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans said in a statement, but added that they must “be used sparingly, with strong safeguards, and always with the best interests and rights of the veteran at the center of the process” due to the seriousness of the step.

“Policies that expand legal authority over a veteran’s decision making risk undermining trust between veterans and the systems designed to support them if they are not implemented with extreme care and transparency,” the statement continued.  

The National Homeless Law Center, a nonprofit legal group, described the policy as a plan to “strip homeless veterans of their rights and autonomy.” Jesse Rabinowitz, the center’s communications director told Task & Purpose that there is strong bipartisan support for ending veteran homelessness and helping struggling veterans, but this move does address root causes to issues such as homelessness. 

Kasperowicz also noted that potential guardians would not be VA employees and the process for deciding if guardianship is needed would have “full due-process and process rights” with “continuous court supervision of the guardian.”

According to federal data, 33,000 veterans are unhoused, out of more than 770,000 Americans who experience homelessness according to the 2024 point-in-time homelessness count. That was an 8% drop from 2023, however approximately 14,000 are unsheltered. In a July 2025 executive order regarding “crime and disorder on America’s streets,” President Donald Trump encouraged the expansion of civil commitment and institutional treatment. The same order claimed that the “overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.” Research into homelessness notes that although unhoused Americans are more likely to have serious mental illness or substance use disorders, data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development put the number of people dealing with addiction or mental health issues as far less than half of the unhoused population. 

Other groups expressed concern of the general impact of what the new policy would mean for veterans’ agency. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, said that it strongly opposes the agreement, saying that guardianship can “be extremely difficult to reverse.” The group instead called for prioritizing policy initiatives including expanding healthcare access and funding mental health status, to “help veterans maintain stability and independence.” 

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The specific F/A-18E, Modex or identifying number 402, was seen launching from the USS Gerald R. Ford in a video posted by U.S. Central Command earlier on Saturday, showing a variety of the air power being used during Operation Epic Fury, the military’s name for combat operations against Iran. The plane is part of the “Golden Warriors” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 87. 

X user @obretix first noticed the presence of the specific F-18 in the video, and Jared Keller, the author of the Laser Wars newsletter, tipped off Task & Purpose to the aircraft’s appearance. The fighter jet and the rest of VFA-87 are assigned to Carrier Air Wing 8. 

Nine years ago on June 18, 2017, Lt. Cmdr. Michael “Mob” Tremel was part of a group of Navy aviators flying over Iraq and Syria, on close air support missions supporting ground troops from the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting Islamic State militants. According to accounts from Tremel and other aviators, he split off from the close air support stack to track a Russian Su-27 that showed up in the area. Soon another fighter showed up, the Syrian Su-22. Tremel repeatedly sent out broadcast warnings to the Syrian jet to turn away, and even tried flying close and releasing flares to get it to back off. Then it started to dive, at the friendly forces on the ground. So Tremel lined up a shot and fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder, with the Syrian jet launching its own flares to send the missile off course. Tremel tried again, this time launching an AIM-120 AMRAAM. That hit the back of the Su-22 dead on, causing the back of the jet to explode and forcing the pilot to eject. Tremel had just scored the first air-to-air kill in 18 years and the first once in the 21st Century. 

In May 1999, a pilot from the 78th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, was the last American to score an air-to-air victory, taking out a Serbian MiG-29 while flying an F-16 over Bosnia. 

The F/A-18E originally had a silhouette of a plane below a Syrian flag on the left side of its body marking the kill, but that was shifted to a single Syrian flag on the right side after it got a fresh paint job. Since getting that Syrian flag art, the plane has changed operators and been assigned to different carriers. A Navy official previously told Task & Purpose that the kill marking applies to the aircraft. 

The fighter jet has been busy in recent months. Photos on the military’s Defense Visual Information Distribution Service show the same plane launching from the Ford in December, as part of Operation Southern Spear in the Caribbean. Before that, Puerto Rico-based aviation photographers spotted it at the Roosevelt Roads naval base on the island, with its pilot identification more visible. The pilot, at least then, was Lt. Cmdr. J.G. Gordon, callsign “Hodor.” 

The U.S. military is using a wide range of air power as part of Operation Epic Fury, including B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, F-15s, F-16s, F-22s and the Navy’s F-18s, the latter launching from the two carriers in the CENTCOM area of responsibility, the Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln. So far they, along with ground assets around the region, have hit thousands of Iranian targets, including sinking several ships. 

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The Marine Corps released its own internal investigation into the Oct. 18 incident on Friday. The incident last fall saw an artillery shell prematurely detonate over Interstate 5 while Marines carried out a live-fire barrage as part of an amphibious assault demonstration. The event, held as part of celebrations for the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday, was attended by Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and caused confusion in the hours leading up to it, prompting a last-minute closure of Interstate 5 near the base. In the hours ahead of the celebration, electronic signs set up along the highway dozens of miles from the base warned drivers of “Live weapons over freeway” as they approached Camp Pendleton.

The Marine Corps determined the issue was the round’s electronic fuze malfunctioning, although the cause of the malfunction wasn’t clear. Per the report, prepared for the commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, the fuze was “manufactured to a one-in-a-million defect standard.” Six M777 howitzers were set up on Red Beach and crewed by Marines from 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They were set to fire artillery into a training area inside Camp Pendleton, on the other side of the freeway. 120 artillery shells were available for the demonstration, the Marine Corps said, and the rounds were fired over Interstate 5, one of California’s busiest highways and serves as the main route between San Diego and Los Angeles; Camp Pendleton sits between the two cities. An Amtrak train line also runs parallel to the freeway by the base. 

Investigators couldn’t determine what caused the malfunction, but said that the howitzers’ proximity to one another might have contributed. The six guns fired were closely packed together, placed in a space 165 yards by 165 yards, with two howitzers only 14 feet apart. The report said that “several career artillery officers note they have never seen howitzers placed this close together but also acknowledged that there was no restrictive minimum distance of Gun placement in relation to administrative artillery live fire.” Additionally, the “potential presence of anomalous electromagnetic energy in the vicinity” of the artillery pieces might have played a role, although the report did not elaborate on what that meant.

“The M767A1 fuze is extremely reliable, with only one malfunction in its service history,” the report said. That incident happened at Fort Drum in 2017 when the same fuze, mounted to a 105mm M119A3 round, exploded early after hitting something mid-flight. 

Experts, including engineers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona in California examined the evidence from the events leading up to the incident. The shell detonated 453 meters above the highway. Shrapnel, including a two-inch-long piece, fell to the ground, hitting a California Highway Patrol car and motorcycle. No one was injured. The two vehicles hit by the raining shrapnel happened to be assigned to Vance’s security detail; Vance himself was not nearby, instead at the stage where the event’s speakers were at. 

The report also noted that President Donald Trump was originally set to attend the amphibious landing demonstration, which would have necessitated the closure of the highway by Camp Pendleton. However, Vance, a Marine veteran, went instead, which created a possibility of traffic being allowed to pass through. 

The premature detonation was the culmination of a chaotic period, after the Marine Corps initially determined that no closure was needed following its own risk assessment. The California government decided, after back and forth with the military and federal government, to close 17 miles of the freeway near the base for several hours, out of safety concerns. Those included the direct risk of the artillery and potential risk the sound of the artillery could cause to drivers, startling or distracting them.

It was later revealed that Marines fired 30 155mm artillery rounds over Interstate 5 the day prior during a rehearsal, while the highway was still open and cars passed under the arc of the munitions. In the fall, California Highway Patrol said that the Marine Corps did not specify the rehearsal would include live artillery rounds being fired, although the Marine Corps claimed that was announced to California officials.

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The system, which is not yet active but may be rolled out sometime in 2026, will review Disability Benefits Questionnaires, or DBQs, and comes amid a broader effort to crack down on a booming industry of private companies that some advocates call “claim sharks.” The companies pitch themselves to veterans as experts in filing paperwork and scheduling medical exams that bolster disability claims. In the past decade, the VA has sent close to 40 cease and desist letters to companies offering similar services, according to reporting by NPR and The War Horse.

Andrew Tangen, president of the National Association of County Veterans Service Officers, said he supports the VA using automation to comb through DBQs.

“Do I think it’s a bad idea? No. And quite honestly, I think it might show the prevalence of the issues with that DBQ fraud,” he said. “What claim sharks will do is they will spend a lot of money on social media advertisements to screw up Google’s algorithm so that when a veteran types in ‘I need a veteran advocate,’ they’ll be the first ones that pop up.” 

DBQs are filled out by VA Compensation and Pension, or C&P examiners with a veteran’s diagnosis, medication history, medical tests, and day-to-day functioning related to their condition. The completed form is used to determine a veteran’s disability rating from 0 to 100%, which dictates monthly VA disability compensation.

The VA employs experts to help veterans work through the DBQ process for no charge, but many for-profit consultants offer similar help. In 2023, the VA Inspector General warned that veterans should be wary of “unaccredited ‘claims consultants’ or representatives” who charge veterans for help with benefit claims.

The VA’s focus on DBQs was first made public by James Smith II, a Veterans Benefits Administration official who told Congress about it last month at a House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing. It was first reported by Stars & Stripes and gained a lot of attention across social media with veterans bashing the proposal as the VA “treating disabled veterans like criminals,” and an effort to reduce disability benefits.

VA spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said in a statement to Task & Purpose that the new system is “not an AI tool,” and it will “identify patterns that may help VA identify when organized fraud rings are posing as legitimate medical providers and preying on veterans (for example, by excessively charging them),” adding that it will not change how the VA decides claims. 

“No veteran’s claim or benefit will be reduced or denied because of this effort,” Kasperowicz said.

Tangen noted that it is already illegal under federal law for unaccredited companies to charge veterans for filing disability claims. But in 2006, Congress removed criminal penalties for the law, which advocates have said allowed private companies to “proliferate.” 

Recent proposals by Congress have directed VA to clamp down on claim fraud, while some states are attempting to pass legislation to take down the companies. 

Smith said the VA has been proactive about the issue by training claims processors on how to identify and report fraud.

The tool comes amid a larger conversation about cuts to veteran benefits and media attention on systemic abuse. An October Washington Post piece on VA fraud and fake disability cases struck a nerve across the veteran community, with advocates slamming the outlet for portraying VA health care and compensation as rife with abuse despite a “small number of outrageous frauds committed by a relative handful of individuals.” 

“Fraud exists in every large system that handles public funds, including the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Carol Whitmore, commander-in-chief for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, told Congress earlier this month. “It is not the identity of America’s veterans.”

‘Telltale signs’ of fraud

Smith told lawmakers that the VA has determined “telltale signs” which indicate if a DBQ is potentially fraudulent or has been altered, like required information in the signature block is missing or the examiner’s address is over 100 miles from where the veteran lives.

But Tangen said the tool flagging for distance could be problematic.

“With a bunch of the dire understaffing that we have in mental health providers, a lot of mental health companies do telehealth appointments,” Tangen said. “You have a veteran who has post-traumatic stress who decides, ‘I want to use an outside provider, I found a great company that can help me,’ and they start using this provider that might be in, let’s say, San Antonio, Texas, and they live in St Paul, Minnesota.”

Smith told Congress that the VA’s “Power BI tool” would be ready for use this year and “will be able to analyze a little over a million public-facing DBQs that have been scanned going all the way back to 2010.”

However, a statement from Kasperowicz claimed that the tool is “forward-looking only” and will not be used “to revisit previously finalized and processed DBQs.”

Minority Veterans of America’s Executive Director Lindsay Church said any automated review of veterans’ information could pose security implications for veterans who served in sensitive positions, and run the risk of misinterpreting personal information, adding delays or denying benefits. Veterans, Church said, should be given an “opt-out” of such a system.

“These risks undermine almost all efficiency gains and have the potential to create additional administrative burdens for both veterans and VA staff,” Church said. “VA must take full responsibility for the accuracy of any and all information and disbursements.”

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“All six crew members aboard a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased,” reads the statement. “The aircraft was lost while flying over friendly airspace March 12 during Operation Epic Fury.”

The crash occurred in “friendly territory” over western Iraq while the troops were flying a combat mission, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Friday.

The incident was not the result of hostile or friendly fire, Central Command said.

An initial news release about the crash said “two aircraft were involved,” and that “One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely.”

An Associated Press reporter posted on social media that the second aircraft was also a KC-135.

Most KC-135s fly with 3 crew members, according to an Air Force fact sheet — a pilot, co-pilot and a boom operator, who “flies” the refueling probe, or boom, from the rear of the aircraft (older models may also fly with a navigator).

The identities of those killed in Thursday’s crash are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification — a standard process in the event of a death.

“War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during Friday’s press briefing. “We will greet those heroes at Dover and their sacrifice will only recommit us to the resolve of this mission.”

Mishaps are uncommon but do occur

Officials did not say if the tanker was engaged in refueling when it crashed. But while air-to-air refueling is a routine skill practiced by nearly all Air Force pilots, the maneuver is inherently risky, and mishaps do occur.

The Air Force recently released a series of mishap reports on three mid-refueling accidents that all occurred between 2022 and 2024 during otherwise routine training. All three involved the refueling boom becoming lodged on a plane while refueling with a newer Air Force tanker, the KC-46.

The 2024 mishap was violent enough to rip the refueling boom off the tanker. It fell harmlessly away as the two planes separated, but could have brought down either jet had it impacted them.

In 2013, a KC-135 crashed in the Kyrgyz Republic while supporting operations over Afghanistan. Air Force investigators determined that crash was unrelated to combat. The plane broke apart in mid-air after the autopilot incorrectly reacted to steering issues and the two relatively inexperienced pilots did not properly react.

Based on a commercial airliner, KC-135’s are among the Air Force’s oldest airplanes, originally entering service in 1956. They are also among the most frequently called up. The plane’s mission — refueling other aircraft, from fighters to cargo planes — during flight has been one U.S. Air Force’s primary strategic advantages in conflicts dating to Vietnam.

The Air Force has about 400 KC-135s, with mission-capable rates of about 70%, according to 2023 data. Multiple efforts to replace the KC-135 with newer tankers in recent decades — first with KC-10s, then the KC-46, along with leasing plans for other aircraft — have foundered in budget and delivery issues.

UPDATE: 3.13.2026; This article was updated after publication with statements from U.S. Central Command and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noting that six U.S. servicemembers have been confirmed dead as a result of the March 12, 2026, KC-135 crash in Iraq.

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James Michael Fisher, 69, was acquitted on March 5 of two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, court records show. A judge dismissed another count of obstruction of justice against Fisher in December.

Fifteen Marines and one sailor were killed when the KC-130T disintegrated over Mississippi in 2017. Investigators found shoddy maintenance and questionable record keeping in a depot where Fisher worked led to a catastrophic propeller failure that tore the plane apart.

Fisher told Task & Purpose this week he was a “scapegoat” in the case. Federal prosecutors had accused Fisher of withholding documents and making false statements to federal agents in an attempt to cover up his role in waving a type of inspection that could have prevented the crash.

When he was initially indicted in July 2024, the Justice Department announced that Fisher faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if he were convicted.

Speaking to Task & Purpose on Thursday, Fisher described his acquittal as a “huge relief.”

“The reality is, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Fisher said. “When the jury saw all the evidence, and they heard my testimony, you could tell that not only the jury but the judge herself realized what had happened: I was made a scapegoat.” 

The KC-130T, flying under the call sign “Yanky 72,” crashed on July 10, 2017, after the plane broke apart at 20,000 feet over Mississippi. All aboard were killed, including seven Marines assigned to the 2nd Raider Battalion.

Military investigators later determined that the crash was caused by a corroded propeller blade that broke free of an engine an tore into the aircraft as it cruised at high altitude. The investigation also found that the problems with the faulty blade had neither been detected nor repaired when it went through the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, Georgia, for an inspection and overhaul in August 2011. 

Fisher served as the C-130 lead propulsion system engineer at the complex from 2011 to 2022. Federal prosecutors accused him of trying to cover up that he had approved a request from a maintenance supervisor to stop conducting a type of inspection that should have found the cracking in the propeller blade in favor of a less reliable method, according to the indictment against him. 

But Steve Farese Sr., one of Fisher’s attorneys, said that Fisher had never approved such a waiver. In fact, someone else, who has yet to be identified, copied and pasted an email from Fisher into the waiver, which was approved by another engineer, Farese told Task & Purpose.

“We were able to show that the document that suspended a safety check process was not approved, not authored, in fact, not even known to Mr. Fisher,” Farese said. “He did not sign the document. He did not see the document.”

Moreover, evidence showed that the waiver did not go into effect until after the propeller blade had been inspected, Farese said.

Fisher told Task & Purpose that it only took jurors little more than an hour to find him not guilty.

“It’s been 20 months that we’ve had this cloud hanging over our head, and it’s going to take a while to recover from it,” Fisher said.

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The lawsuit, filed by veterans, advocacy groups, and the State of Virginia, alleges that the VA has blocked eligible veterans from using two GI Bills to pay for undergraduate and graduate degrees. While the Supreme Court cleared the way for some veterans to use both the Montgomery GI Bill and Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, the lawsuit says, the VA has taken to requiring a formal “break in service” at some point in a career for a veteran to be eligible for both.

A 2024 Supreme Court case brought by Army veteran James Rudisill, veterans say, made clear that no break is required.

“The VA imposed rules that, among other things, create a break-in-service requirement for veterans to obtain benefits under both GI Bills,” the lawsuit said. “That is, the VA’s position is that a veteran needs a distinct ‘period of service’ — separated by a break — to establish eligibility under each benefit program. This contrived requirement has no basis in the U.S. Code, [the Supreme Court ruling for] Rudisill, or common sense.’”

A VA spokesperson told Task & Purpose that the agency “can’t comment on pending litigation.”

VA denied benefits for over 1 million veterans

The new lawsuit also alleges that while Rudisill’s case was being litigated, the VA continued barring veterans and family members from using both GI Bills. According to the VA’s own data included in the lawsuit, more than 1,039,000 veterans’ claims may have been denied.

The Montgomery GI Bill covers military service between 1985 and 2030 and provides veterans up to $2,518 per month in direct payments. The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, colloquially referred to as the Post-9/11 GI Bill, covers service for those who joined after Sept. 11, 2001, and can be applied for the full cost of attending a university, and includes monthly rent. 

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 5 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Virginia’s Attorney General, as well as several veterans and their families.

With the lawsuit, veterans are hoping that the court strikes down the VA’s rule, which they say “illogically denies full benefits to many of the Nation’s longest-serving veterans simply because they chose to serve continuously.”

In the lawsuit, veterans groups allege that the VA’s rule was developed as “an unduly cramped” reading of the 2024 Supreme Court Rudisill decision.

Rudisill enlisted in 2000 and served in the Army for a total of eight years, broken up over three separate active duty terms with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. His service both before and after the 9/11 attacks earned him benefits from both GI Bills. Rudisill used his Montgomery benefits for his undergraduate degree, and he planned to use Post-9/11 benefits for a graduate degree. But Rudisill found he was only eligible for the remaining part of his unused Montgomery benefits, due to a provision in the post-9/11 policy.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in a 7-2 decision in April 2024 that veterans like Rudisill are entitled to both programs they separately accrued under the two GI bills. 

VFW General Counsel John Muckelbauer said in a release that the Supreme Court case was clear. 

“Veterans who earned eligibility under both programs can receive up to 48 months of education benefits. VA’s regulations add conditions that do not exist in the statute and undermine the Supreme Court’s ruling,” Muckelbauer said. “Our brief asks the court to ensure the law is implemented correctly so veterans receive the full benefits they earned.”

According to the lawsuit, if a veteran is able to use the “more generous” Post-9/11 GI Bill, they can receive more than $30,000 per year in tuition benefits alone, over $3,000 a month for housing allowance, a $1,000 book stipend, and other benefits.

The VA’s denial of these benefits, according to the lawsuit, “causes real financial harm,” and may force veterans to find other ways to pay for education — like liquidating their retirement accounts or taking out loans with accrued interest. Some veterans may end up delaying or forgoing their education after service entirely.

“The loss in earning power from delaying or halting their pursuit of higher education cannot easily be undone,” veterans wrote in their legal brief. “Veterans who use education benefits under both GI Bills are typically older than the average college or graduate student because they served five or more years.”

The veterans argue in the lawsuit that the VA has still not provided veterans and families with a reimbursement mechanism or a way to extend the date for when benefits must be used. 

“This means that children may age out of eligibility before the VA’s wrongful interpretation of the Post-9/11 GI Bill is corrected,” they wrote in the suit. “Thus, because of the VA’s own knowing error, dependent children may receive none of the benefits they are owed.”

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Blast overpressure is the rapid high wave of pressure that results from an explosion that violently compresses and decompresses human tissue. It can cause serious injuries to the lungs, gastrointestinal tract, brain, and other organs. It can also be fatal.

The M111 Offensive Hand Grenade, the Army’s first new lethal hand grenade since 1968, has a plastic body that helps direct overpressure, Army officials said. The grenade is meant to be used in confined spaces, such as rooms, bunkers, and caves. 

Weighing 12.6 ounces, the M111 will augment the M67 fragmentation hand grenade, which will be used in open spaces, said John Troup with Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics, an Army organization responsible for fielding armaments and ammunition.

Its distinct shape, which resembles a bottle, does not create or direct blast overpressure, Troup told Task & Purpose on Thursday.

“The shape helps soldiers to distinguish the M111 from other grenades,” Troup said in a statement. “As soldiers train and practice with the M111, the shape will help aid muscle memory during extreme time-sensitive and high-dynamic environments.”

Troup said the grenade will first be issued to soldiers in the Army’s Immediate Response Force, which is capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours. The Army plans to start fielding the grenade to the rest of the services starting in 2028, he said.

Other grenades, such as the M67, spray lethal fragments when they explode, but that shrapnel can be deflected by obstacles within enclosed spaces, an Army news release says. This is less of an issue for grenades that use blast overpressure.

Another issue is that in recent decades, U.S. soldiers have often fought in poorly constructed buildings, making it dangerous to use fragmentation grenades, a retired Army infantry officer told Task & Purpose. 

In such buildings, grenade fragments can penetrate walls and potentially hit friendly forces on the other side, the retired officer said. Blast overpressure, on the other hand, is more isolated to the specific room where the weapon explodes.

“One of the key lessons learned from the door-to-door urban fighting in Iraq was the M67 grenade wasn’t always the right tool for the job,” Col. Vince Morris, project manager for Close Combat Systems, said in the Army’s news release. “The risk of fratricide on the other side of the wall was too high. But a grenade utilizing [blast overpressure] can clear a room of enemy combatants quickly leaving nowhere to hide while ensuring the safety of friendly forces.”

The Army has long been aware of the risks to soldiers from weapons that generate blast overpressure, such as the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, and last year the service announced it would study how firing such weapons affects soldiers’ health.

Soldiers are already limited to how many rounds they can fire in a 24-hour period while training with the Carl Gustaf.

Todd Strader, a former Army mortarman who advocates for safety measures from blast overpressure risks, said it is somewhat ironic that the Army is adopting a new grenade that uses overpressure.

“Apparently, blast physics is reliable enough to weaponize against an enemy, but still debated when it is our own troops living among these blasts in training,” Strader, who leads OverPressured LLC, told Task & Purpose. “To their credit, the Army is leading the world in recognizing and taking measures to mitigate this unique exposure.”

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“We’re in a totally different environment with AI and the reality around social media,” said Shannon Razsadin, CEO of the Military Family Advisory Network. “We’re seeing a lot of anxiety among military families, and the misinformation certainly does not help with that. Right now, people are really looking for information that they can count on.”

Since the U.S. began operations against Iran on Feb. 28, triggering missile and drone attacks in retaliation, military families have faced a flood of misinformation, fake reports and online rumors. There have been videos claiming to show a fighter jet shot down over Basra, Iraq; reports by Russian and Iranian media of a U.S. missile hitting a neighborhood in Bahrain; and claims by an Iranian official of captured American troops. All those were false, but their debunking came hours or even days after the claims spread.

On Sunday, U.S. Central Command posted a “fact check” video montage of other claims from unofficial accounts, stating that the posts were evidence of the Iranian regime “constantly peddling lies.”

Corie Weathers, an Army spouse, said families are getting emotional whiplash from the official and unofficial messages. On one hand, real news clips and “cinematic” AI-generated videos both show the horrors of ongoing combat, while social media posts from the military depict “the excellence of the community,” she said. “It can just be very, very confusing,” she added.

All families really want, she said, is to know whether their service member is safe or going to deploy.

“Where do we get that information in order to feel secure, in order to feel informed, and also to feel like we can give that buy-in from that family readiness perspective that says I can support my service member because I have the accurate information and I know where to go for resources,” Weathers said.

Daniella Horne is the digital organizer for the Secure Families Initiative and an Army veteran who deployed twice to Afghanistan. She said the bombardment of social media content and news, paired with uncertainty from U.S. officials about where the war is heading, is causing a whole lot of uncertainty and stress for military families.

“People are trying to stay informed and at the same time, support their service members, support the military,” she said. “Then you’re watching the news and trying to understand what the next weeks are gonna look like, what the next months are gonna look like, and if this is gonna drag on. … Is this going to be another forever war?” 

AI-generated videos have been all over the map. One common strain depicts crying troops in front of miscellaneous rubble or coffins. In at least one, a service member holds up a wallet-sized photo of a “dead” friend.

Some of the most worrisome content, said Ellen Gustafson, executive director of We the Veterans & Military Families, includes AI-generated content trying to sow division. Some posts focus on the U.S.-Israel relationship or domestic politics with themes she described as: “[Benjamin] Netanyahu’s son is off basking in the sunshine, and your son is in a coffin with an American flag draped over it,” or “Have you seen Trump’s new White House ballroom?”

Gustafson founded The Homefront Sentinel to raise awareness of foreign entities and online scams deliberately targeting veterans and military families “because we’re such a trusted community.”

Gustafson said she’s tracking instances where images of soldiers who have died are being repurposed “because that’s a known public death that people can take advantage of.” She said she’s seen fake GoFundMe accounts and even AI “photos” that appear to show statues of the dead Americans erected in Tehran.

“Who knows whose agenda that is?” she said. 

A lot of AI-generated content is created to tug at heartstrings by “using the fact that Americans do get emotional about our military,” Gustafson said. “Making people more emotional about the conflict that they’re currently serving in is incredibly damaging to troop morale or divisions within units.”

New AI, old PSYOP tactics

Ken Ramos, a retired psychological operations soldier, said the ability to evoke intense emotional reactions is the “bread and butter” of psychological operations. 

“We want to make sure that anything that’s susceptible to your vulnerability and how we are accessible to you, is what we’re going to use,” he said. “‘I don’t want my freaking teammates to get killed.’ ‘Look, you’re going to go die for these bullshit wars.’ ‘I don’t want to go die for these bullshit wars. This is not what I signed up for.’ A lot of it is foreign-related.”

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have previously tracked tactics used by foreign actors, like Iran, to influence U.S. politics, including AI-made content, fake online personas, and inauthentic news sites. A 2024 estimate found that 71% of images shared across social media were AI-generated and a Europol report predicted that nearly 90% of all online content would be AI-generated by 2026.

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Officials announced on March 11 that Marzan had been positively identified by a medical examiner. The Pentagon initially released Marzan’s name on March 5, adding that he was “believed” to have been killed in the attack, but his identification was still pending at the time.

The five other soldiers killed when the Iranian drone struck a tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, were: Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Waukee, Iowa; Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Master Sgt. Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa.

Officials announced on March 2 that six soldiers were killed in the attack, but only four were identified the following day, initially withholding Marzan and O’Brien’s names because they had been listed as “unaccounted for” in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

All six of the fallen soldiers were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, based out of Des Moines, Iowa. The March 1 drone attack is under investigation.

“We honor our fallen Heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation,” Lt. Gen. Robert Harter, Chief of Army Reserve and Commanding General U.S. Army Reserve Command, said in a statement. “Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten.”

A total of seven U.S. troops have been killed since the U.S. military campaign against Iran, named Operation Epic Fury, began on Feb. 28. 

In addition to the six soldiers killed in the Kuwait attack, Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, died of his injuries on March 8 after being wounded in a March 1 attack by Iran on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. 

Pennington, of Glendale, Kentucky, was assigned to 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade, based out of Fort Carson, Colorado. He will be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant.

Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, Iran has retaliated by firing thousands of missiles and drones at U.S. partners in the Middle East, including those that host American military installations such as Qatar and Bahrain, defense officials said.

The Iranian drone that struck Port Shuaiba. Kuwait managed to penetrate U.S. air defenses, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters during a March 2 Pentagon news briefing.

News media outlets have raised questions about whether the tactical operations center in Kuwait, where the six service members were killed, had adequate protection against missiles and drones.

Defense officials have pushed back on such new reports by arguing the U.S. military has gone to great lengths to protect American service members in the Middle East. 

So far, U.S. military officials have not said publicly which American installations in the region have been attacked by Iran or the extent of the damage they have sustained.

Operation Epic Fury began after a weeks-long U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, during which the planes, ships, and missile defenses were dispatched to the region.

The aircraft carriers USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln and their respective strike groups are supporting ongoing operations against Iran. Each strike group includes several squadrons of fighter jets as well as destroyers escorting them. 

The United States also moved several squadrons of fighter jets into the CENTCOM area of responsibility, including F-15s, F-16s, F-22s and F-35s. They join air units already in the area that have been taking part in operations against the Islamic State over the last three months. 

Additionally, the U.S. fielded its new Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS drones in combat for the first time on Feb. 28. It is still unclear which targets the drones attacked or how widespread their use was, but the cheap one-way drones are specifically modeled on Iran’s own Shahed-136 kamikaze drones, which have been widely used in recent fighting around the region.

UPDATE: 03/11/2026; This story was updated after the Pentagon announced that Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan had been officially identified.

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First spotted by Jared Keller, the author of the Laser Wars newsletter, the photo was published to the military’s image and video database on March 1. It is one of several shots that capture the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln on the opening day of Operation Epic Fury, which began on Feb. 28. 

The photo, taken in the pilothouse of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, shows two sailors as they observe flight operations. One of the sailors, who appears to be a Navy commander, given the black oak leaf on his tan flight suit, can be seen sporting a distinctive gargoyle patch that is identical to the art used for Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard Ale.

The brewery uses gargoyle imagery for its logos, with the stein-holding, slightly buzzed gothic guardian adorning the Arrogant Bastard Ale, which also has the motto “Hated by many, loved by few” on its cases. The deep red ale works very hard to earn its title and is hoppy in a way that suggests that if it were a person, it would think bitterness was a personality. This, from Stone Brewing’s website, sums it up:

This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory—maybe something with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made at an independent brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless seltzer / fizzy yellow beer / whatever-the-hell will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multimillion-dollar ad campaigns make all that junk taste better. Perhaps you’re mouthing your words as you read this.

Right up there with slightly out-of-regs facial hair, unofficial morale patches are common enough sights among forward-deployed sailors, soldiers, airmen, guardians and Marines. Sometimes they make waves, like when the Navy posted a photo of a helicopter pilot’s patch depicting the Tusken Raiders from “Star Wars” alongside the words “Houthi Hunting Club.” Other times, they capture an inside joke or a reference to some core part of military culture, like another Abraham Lincoln sailor who proudly rocked a patch showing his inclusion in the “E-4 Mafia.”

At their heart, morale patches offer a rare moment of individual expression while in uniform — a chance to have something that is yours in a sea of tan, navy blue, grey, or olive drab. At least until someone with more rank on their collar decides they’ve had enough of that and tells you to take it off in the name of uniformity, cohesion, and half a dozen other buzzwords. 

As for the Arrogant Bastard aficionado out there on the Lincoln, one can probably assume that he does indeed have the sophistication to appreciate an ale of such quality and depth, and given that he’s an O-5 aboard a carrier actively engaged in combat operations, the chances are low he gets any meaningful flak for wearing a beer patch.

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This week, the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defense released video of their own AH-64s engaging and shooting down Iranian Shaheed drones that it said were headed towards targets in the country. The Israeli Army has also used AH-64s to attack Iranian drones in flight in recent months.

“As Apache pilots, we love to blow things up, and the idea that we can do air-to-air stuff is pretty amazing,” said Don Bentley, who flew Apaches for 10 years in the Army, including in Afghanistan with the 4th Infantry Division, and now writes military novels.

Bentley and another long-time Apache pilot told Task & Purpose that the UAE engagements show how the 40-year-old helicopter has a place in the new world of drone warfare.

Emily Hills enlisted in the army as a truck mechanic but flew the helicopters for 10 years as a warrant officer, including on combat deployments and as a test pilot, retiring in 2018.

“I love the Apache. She’s a maintenance pilot’s worst nightmare, but I love her. So to see the fact that it could calculate that [engagement] is amazing,” Hills said. “I’ve always joked that, you know, the reason that we sell so many aircraft is that we hope there’s an Apache-Apache dog fight someday. We clearly don’t really want that, but it was neat to see.”

Tactics designed for ground used in the air

Both pilots agreed the videos appear to be real, with on-screen symbols that match Apache targeting and flight systems and tell-tale signs of tactics and weapons that match their own experience.

The engagement appears to show Apaches tracking and firing at Iranian Shaheed drones, which have been widely used in the ongoing conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran.

Bentley said that, not surprisingly, the Apaches appear to be using their 30mm M230 chain gun, which pivots underneath the nose of the helicopter, with tactics similar to ground engagements.

“What you see in the video is the 30 millimeter cannon that the Apache has,” Bentley said. “It is not designed for air-to-air engagements. It actually fires at a much slower rate than what a fighter jet would. So, for instance, while a fighter cannon might fire 3,000 rounds per minute, the Apache one fires just at 600. Most of those look like 10-round bursts, which is what the cannon is designed for, to shoot armor and stuff.”

Apaches do not fire tracer rounds, Bentley pointed out, because the guns are targeted with a forward-looking infrared, or FLIR, system, allowing the weapons officer to see each round’s heat signature.

“The gunner was in the FLIR mode so [the bullets] looked black but were actually the heat from the rounds,” Bentley said. “Tracers are for a higher rate of fire machine gun, where you’re ‘walking’ the rounds in. With the Apache, what you’re doing is firing a select number of rounds, and then you adjust the rounds based on the impact. So you’re not firing a continuous stream, like when you walk in tracers.”

Though it doesn’t appear to have been used in this instance, the U.S. has been testing air-burst ammunition designed specifically for taking out drones.

“You can look at the video and see, there’s a couple of those shots where you can see the rounds going by and they’re not air bursting,” Bentley said. “They’re going straight past the target. So I think they’re the normal Apache rounds.”

Hard flying to set up an easy shot

Hills noted that American Apache pilots preferred firing short bursts in cities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“If you’re shooting rounds over a populated area, conservation of ammunition is important for collateral damage,” she said. “So I thought it was a really skillful professional engagement.”

Hills noted that while the gun is being targeted by the pilot in the front seat, the pilot in the rear is likely pushing the helicopter at close to top speed to stay in the best spot for firing. She also noted that watching the full-throttle engagement made her think of the maintenance troops that had the helicopter’s multiple systems working properly. 

“The back seater is doing an amazing job of keeping a level weapons firing platform, which is the job of the back seater,” she said. “I know that aircraft is extraordinarily well maintained, that gun was shooting nails, which, especially in the desert, is extremely difficult to get it to do that. You know, the M230 is a fickle girl.”

Hills also wondered if the mechanics might actually be Americans working as contract workers.

“A lot of the guys I was in the Army with got out and went over there,” she said. “So it still makes me extraordinarily proud of them, because they’re still turning wrenches and still in the fight.”

The UAE has flown Apaches for close to three decades and bought over 30 of the latest versions of the helicopter in 2024.

“I trained and went to school with UAE pilots,” Hills said. “They were in our flight classes when I was going through.”

The sheer novelty of seeing an Apache air-to-air kill reminded both pilots that the helicopters were originally conceived with the ability to carry Stinger missiles, a weapon designed to bring down a fighter jet. Early Apache models even had firing switches for the air-to-air system on the flight controls.

“It was envisioned that there would be hard points on the end of the two Apache wing stores where you could potentially mount a Stinger,” said Bentley. “I never used it in 10 years of flying.”

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