Tag Archives: Pentagon

NBC News reports: The U.S. Army has paused the movement of future U.S. soldiers to basic combat training, the department announced Monday. “This tactical pause will allow commands to ensure appropriate safety measures are in place and are operating effectively at training installations,” the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, which oversees training of Army recruits, said in a statement. …

ABC News reports: The Pentagon will soon announce a new policy requiring face masks for military personnel, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday on ABC This Week. “We will have a directive coming up on that today,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. “Now we’re going to move towards face covering.” Over 1,200 service …

The Hill reports: Sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt cheered for their departing captain Thursday night as he was removed from duty. Videos captured on social media and sites like Stars and Stripes show sailors shouting “Captain Crozier” for Capt. Brett Crozier as he left the ship. Crozier was removed from duty after a letter he wrote pleading for help …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Navy is expected to relieve the commander of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote a scathing letter that leaked to the public asking the Navy for stronger measures to control a coronavirus outbreak onboard, U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Captain Brett Crozier was being relieved not …

Bloomberg News reports: The Pentagon is seeking to provide as many as 100,000 military-style body bags for potential civilian use as the U.S. warns that deaths could soar in the coming weeks from the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested 100,000 body bags, known as Human Remains Pouches, through an interagency group that directed it to the …

The Navy Times reports: The Navy’s senior leadership was aware of both the COVID-19 outbreak onboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and the concern about properly isolating sailors well before the ship’s commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier, sent a letter Monday up his chain of command sounding the alarm, the Navy’s top admiral told reporters Wednesday. “Let me emphasize that …

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier with more than 100 sailors infected with the coronavirus pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew and avoid possible deaths in a situation he described as quickly deteriorating. The unusual plea from Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, came …

Just in from the US Naval Institute: The Pentagon is starting the process of activating Navy hospital ships USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) as part of the Defense Department’s domestic response to the spreading COVID-19 virus, USNI News has learned. “We’ve already given orders to the Navy… to lean forward in terms of getting them ready to deploy,” …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is seeking court permission to reconsider certain aspects of its decision to award a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft Corp, court filings showed on Thursday. A U.S. judge last month granted Amazon.com Inc’s request to temporarily halt the DoD and Microsoft from moving forward with the deal, which Amazon had …

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge has concluded that a bid protest lawsuit brought by Amazon over President Trump’s intervention in an important Pentagon cloud computing contract “is likely to succeed on the merits” of one of its central arguments, according to a court document made public Friday. The document provides the first indication of how Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith …

Via press release from the Justice Department: Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was charged today in the District of Columbia with transmitting highly sensitive classified national defense information to a foreign national with apparent connections to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization that has been so designated by the Secretary of State. According to the affidavit filed in …

Courthouse News reports: An attorney for a men’s rights group argued Tuesday before the Fifth Circuit that the military’s all-male draft registration system, which the Supreme Court upheld in 1981, should now be struck down as unconstitutional. Marc Angelucci, representing the National Coalition for Men and two men challenging the male-only draft, said a 2015 decision by the military to …

The Associated Press reports: Lawmakers from both parties told Pentagon leaders on Wednesday that the Defense Department is undermining its own efforts to get military money by diverting billions of dollars for the construction of President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the committee’s top Republican warned Defense Secretary Mark Esper that …

Roll Call reports: The spread of the coronavirus in Europe is affecting operations and services on some U.S. military bases in Italy, and precautions could soon extend to the thousands of personnel stationed in Germany, the general in charge of the military’s activity on that continent told senators on Tuesday. Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, who leads U.S. European …

The Military Times reports: The Pentagon’s top policy official is reportedly being pushed out of the department, as part of the fallout from the Ukraine military aid issue at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Trump confirmed that John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, is departing―a move that leaves yet another significant vacancy at the top …

NBC News reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, uniting against a Trump administration idea to withdraw U.S. troops from part of Africa, pushed back during a fiery exchange with Defense Secretary Mark Esper here over the weekend, according to four people present at or familiar with the meeting. At one point, Graham warned Esper that there …

Space News reports: The Trump administration’s $740.5 billion budget request for national defense in 2021 includes $15.4 billion for the U.S. Space Force, according to documents released by the Pentagon on Friday. The U.S. Space Force was established Dec. 20 as an independent service under the Department of the Air Force. In the 2021 budget the U.S. Air Force transferred …

The Military Times reports: U.S. Northern Command is executing plans to prepare for a potential pandemic of the novel coronavirus, now called COVID19, according to Navy and Marine Corps service-wide messages issued this week. An executive order issued by the Joint Staff and approved by Defense Secretary Mark Esper this month directed Northern Command and geographic combatant commanders to initiate …

Stars & Stripes reports: Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday defended the Pentagon’s effort to strip Stars and Stripes of all of its federal funding as part of its fiscal year 2021 budget request, telling reporters in Brussels that the independent news organization is not a priority. “So, we trimmed the support for Stars and Stripes because we need to …

CNBC reports: A judge ordered Thursday a temporary block on the JEDI cloud contract in response to a suit filed by Amazon. Shares of Microsoft fell slightly on the news. A court notice announcing the injunction was filed on Thursday, but wasn’t public. It’s unclear why the documents were sealed. Amazon Web Services (AWS) alleged Trump launched “behind-the-scenes attacks” against …