The Army recently established the 08H Army Equestrian military occupational specialty and Staff Sgt. Shawn Tabor and Sgt. Daimien Copeland, both assigned to the Caisson Detachment at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, are among the first soldiers to qualify for the new role after completing an 18-week horsemanship program.

“When the 08H opportunity came around, there was no hesitation; I immediately jumped on it. There was no second thought or doubt about doing it,” said Tabor, who has served in the detachment for eight years as an infantryman.

The 08H specialty replaced the “military horseman” identifier and, according to an Army release, is open to infantry soldiers in the grades of E5 to E9. It is a role the Army says contributes to recruiting, public outreach and military funeral honors.

During the initial 12-week program, soldiers learn grooming, groundwork and communication with horses in the Basic Horsemanship Course before moving on to horse driving and the Caisson Detachment’s distinctive postilion riding method during the Advanced Horsemanship Course for six more weeks.

Copeland, who has served in the detachment for four years, said that when he was in-processing, he was excited to learn about the opportunity to work with horses.

“During my time at Caisson, we had our first state funeral in more than 20 years for former President Jimmy Carter. Taking part in that funeral reinforced the importance of our mission and the honor of serving in a role that very few soldiers have the opportunity to experience,” he said in the release.

Previously scheduled to end, the Army in Dec. 2025 announced it was retaining military working equid programs — which include Defense Department horses, mules and donkeys — in Texas and Kansas.

The designation comes after the Army resumed limited use of horse-drawn caissons at Arlington National Cemetery in mid-2025 following a two-year suspension prompted by concerns over the welfare of the horses. The service halted the program in 2023 after two horses — Mickey and Tony — died in 2022 from colon impactions linked to substandard feed and living conditions.

According to the Defense Department, the Army upgraded equipment to replace wooden saddles with lighter, custom leather saddles. The service also decreased the caisson’s weight by over 1,000 pounds and made other adjustments to lessen the strain on the horses.

A 2025 release also said the soldiers’ training had “shifted from impromptu methods to a structured pipeline,” with the basic course — launched in 2024 — held at a private stable in Virginia and then a six-week camp located at an equestrian sports facility in Florida.

“We don’t get soldiers from horse backgrounds anymore,” said Army Maj. Wes Strickland, the 3rd Infantry Regiment public affairs officer at the time, said in the 2025 statement. “So, we teach everything — how to walk up to a horse, saddle it, clean a stall.”

The skill tab will join the likes of the Sapper Tab, Ranger Tab and Special Forces Tab as “an official skill tab,” spokesperson Christopher Surridge said, adding that the Army is in the midst of codifying official policy and procedures for the tab’s wear and approval in the upcoming iterations of the service’s regulations.

“We will officially publish and distribute formal implementation guidance to all commands upon publishing these regulations,” he said.

The update was first reported by Task & Purpose after a related memorandum circulated on social media. Last week, U.S. Army Pacific Command on X said the Army had approved the tab and asked followers to tag or submit photos of themselves wearing it.

The move builds on an effort to revive jungle warfare expertise and experience, as the Army earlier this year tapped the newly-redesignated Army Security Cooperation Group-South to oversee the Combined Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama. Candidates at the Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón school complete the grueling course in what the Army calls “Green Hell,” where suffocating heat and humidity pair with heavy foliage to make basic soldiering tasks even harder.

The first phase of the course — which is conducted jointly with Panamanian forces — covers “jungle survival fundamentals,” according to the Army, including learning to use machetes, kindling fires, purifying water and constructing basic shelters. In the second phase, students learn small-unit tactics, ambushes, waterborne operations and how to move in dense terrain.

The course culminates in phase three, where students are sent on simulated missions and evaluated on teamwork and leadership.

The Army formerly operated a jungle warfare training course for decades before it was shut down in 1999.

Its rebirth comes as the Army has made sweeping changes to its force structure as it prepares for conflict with peer and near-peer competitors, shifting the advisory force created by the Global War on Terror to a new mission and overhauling command structure under the Western Hemisphere Command, created last year.

The program is open to Army aviation warrant officers who meet specific career requirements and agree to remain on active duty for three to six additional years.

The move, first reported by Task & Purpose, comes as the Navy and Air Force are also offering hefty bonuses to keep select experienced aviators in the service.

Warrant officers with 12 to 14 years of active federal service can pocket up to $75,600 by committing to three more years on active duty. Those with at least 18 years of service can qualify for bonuses ranging from $120,000 to $209,880 in exchange for four- to six-year commitments.

The incentives are available to regular Army warrant officers in certain specialties who are medically qualified for flight duty and serve as pilots in command, among other requirements. Those seeking the bonuses must assent via written agreement. If they fail to stay eligible during the term of their service, aviators may be required to repay the bonuses.

The payments will be made in monthly installments — instead of a lump sum — and are taxable, though they’re tax-exempt when the payee qualifies for combat zone tax exclusion.

The program has an obligation ceiling of $17.1 million, but Army headquarters can suspend the bonus payments if funding becomes unavailable, according to the memorandum.

Effective immediately, the directive says bonus agreements will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis. The directive expires Sept. 30, 2026.

The exercise brought Army aviators and experts together in May at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, to test virtual versions of the MV-75’s cockpit, according to a Thursday release, which said the feedback will be incorporated into the aircraft’s design ahead of its first flight and ultimate delivery to the 101st Airborne Division.

The service’s new tiltrotor aircraft — named in honor of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe — was designed for use in the Pacific theater. The Army has sped up its development timeline and announced in April that the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is expected to field the MV-75 in 2027.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Julian Dilg, a UH-60 pilot who participated in the weeklong exercise, said there was a noticeable cockpit change from current aircraft.

“The displays are inherently different, so we were able to work together and bounce ideas off of each other and gain insight,” he said in the release.

The collaboration was critical for the participants to “find enough common ground to work with in order to decide what changes needed to be made to display the information needed to fly it most effectively,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jordan Brooks, a CH-47 pilot, said in the release.

Army and Bell engineers have begun incorporating the feedback into the aircraft’s cockpit design by adjusting display symbols, improving menu navigation and improving alerting. One recommendation prompted by the exercise was the push to group power and performance data together, a change they said would make decisions easier, per the release.

The evaluation comes as militaries prepare for future battlespaces defined by drones and inundated with data. Future pilots may be expected to contend with fleets of unmanned aircraft and sensors in a crowded airspace, meaning they will have to process unprecedented amounts of information.

Maj. Collin L. Welch, 40, pleaded guilty to unlawfully introducing aliens to enter and remain in the U.S. and the theft of around $54,000 in government money, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, D.C. He is scheduled for sentencing in December.

As a married man, Welch was posted in 2019 to the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where he kindled a relationship with a Mongolian woman. By creating a fake divorce decree, he convinced the woman he was single and in 2022, he married her in Mongolia, federal prosecutors said.

In 2024, Welch brought the woman and her minor daughter to the U.S. on tourist visas and in October of that year, he married the woman for a second time in Virginia, according to the attorney’s office. Welch was still legally married to his initial wife at each of his subsequent nuptials.

When his guests’ tourist visas expired in early 2025, Welch continued to house and financially support them and he, once again, took to fabricating documents, creating permanent residency approvals, Social Security cards and a letter showing military health benefits for dependents, the office said. He never filed any paperwork with any government agency.

To fund the travel and living expenses of his new bride and her daughter, Welch racked up tens of thousands of dollars on his government travel card, creating fraudulent travel vouchers using fake hotel and rental card receipts.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, with help from the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Unit.

Welch, who is from Arlington, Virginia, previously served in the Alaska and D.C. National Guard, and he deployed to Afghanistan and Djibouti.

The D.C. National Guard has not responded to a request for comment.

The service on June 30 awarded firm-fixed-price Other Transaction Agreements to Ford, GM Defense and BC Customs, the Army confirmed Tuesday. Each company will deliver three Infantry Squad Vehicle-Heavy, or ISV-H, models, with the first expected by March 30, 2027. The six-seat platforms will then be tested with the Army Test and Evaluation Command.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the awards on Monday.

Military Times requested the dollar amounts of the contracts, but the Army did not specify the cost.

In a Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, published in April, the Army posted that it was looking for vehicles capable of carrying a 4,000-pound payload, towing a 6,500-pound trailer and supporting large power requirements. The service wants its new ISV-H able to export 60 kW of continuous high-voltage DC power — an immense load — so soldiers can operate counter drone systems, electronic warfare, directed energy weapons and more.

The Army also wants the vehicle to be rechargeable — able to replenish its power to 90% within six hours — in conditions ranging from extreme cold that dips to -25 degrees Fahrenheit to intense heat climbing to 130 degrees.

The Army is preparing for autonomous operations, with desired specifications like architecture already in place for “drive-by-wire.” It also wants rotating rear seats and “ergonomic mobile workstations,” as well as rear seating that can be quickly configured — without tools — to hold a litter for evacuations.

The current Infantry Squad Vehicle, built by GM Defense, was designed to quickly move nine soldiers through landscapes that were dangerous or impractical to use other military vehicles.

The Army’s fiscal 2027 budget request, released in April, calls for purchasing an initial 34 ISV-H vehicles at an estimated cost of $463,000 per truck, with a long-term goal to buy 606 vehicles.

In a June Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Jess Tolleson, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, said the ISV-H needs to fill a power-generation shortfall.

“One of the things that we do have a critical capability gap on right now is power generation at that mobile brigade combat team level,” he said.

GM Defense had not responded to a Military Times inquiry at the time of publication but previously said on social media that it was optimizing a Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD truck.

Ford, in a Tuesday statement regarding the contract, said its Super Duty trucks are well suited for military applications but did not provide further details on the specifications. Breaking Defense on Monday reported Ford would be using its F-Series pickup truck.

In a call on Tuesday, BC Customs chief operating officer, Dave Baringer, said the company was uniquely able to create an endlessly modify-able, “purpose-driven, ground-up vehicle.” He also said BC Customs was working in cooperation with Raglan, a company that will handle the electronic infrastructure of the prototypes. Baringer declined to discuss the timeline or contract amount.

The Army’s quest for a vehicle that can produce powerful amounts of energy comes amid its push to field more energy-directed weapons on lighter tactical vehicles.

The service has already operationally tested AeroVironment’s 20-kilowatt LOCUST laser aboard both the Infantry Squad Vehicle and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle through its Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser effort.

A now-viral video of the pests scuttled across the internet last week, prompting the closure of a Texas Army dining facility that seemingly served up hot meals to two- and six-legged bellies alike.

“We are aware of the video depicting our dining facility. Effective immediately, we are closing the Operation Iraqi Freedom facility to correct the situation. The DFAC will remain closed until the problem is remediated,” Lt. Col. Joey Payton, the director of public affairs for III Armored Corps, said in a statement to Military Times.

Payton said the Army was investigating how the Fort Hood facility became infested with the crawling creatures. While the building remains closed, he said, the base is providing food trucks with options for soldiers who hold meal cards to use.

Many junior enlisted soldiers who live in barracks automatically have part of their pay deducted to cover food at base dining facilities.

The video was posted anonymously on U.S. Army W.T.F. moments, an unofficial social media account that frequently shares soldier-submitted material.

Troops have long bemoaned the quality of dining facility food, but it is unlikely that insects were the intended answer to those seeking more diverse protein options.

The most recent roach-ma-geddon follows years of other complaints at the installation. In 2024, soldiers at the base, then called Fort Cavazos, said money was being deducted from their accounts even when dining facilities could not accommodate their religious dietary requirements.

Nearly 40,000 soldiers are currently stationed at Fort Hood, according to the service.

The PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector, or ACE, will cost less than half of what a PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or MSE, interceptor costs, the defense firm said, and can be used with legacy equipment.

The announcement, which came during London’s 2026 Farnborough Airshow, comes as the U.S. looks to reduce its dependence on expensive interceptors to combat mass-produced munitions, a juxtaposition that has come under increased scrutiny as American forces have blown through the country’s finite interceptor stockpile to combat Iran’s relatively inexpensive drones during Operation Epic Fury.

The PAC-3 interceptors cost an estimated $4 million, far more than the $35,000 typical price tag of an Iranian Shahed drone. Experts warn that the U.S.’ increased interceptor use has raised concerns about whether stockpiles can be replenished quickly enough to sustain a prolonged campaign.

The PAC-3 ACE is designed to combat airbreathing threats — weapons that rely on oxygen for propulsion — cruise missiles and close- and short-range ballistic missiles.

Lockheed Martin said the new interceptor will still be compatible with the Patriot weapon system and Integrated Battle Command System, which enables the company to speed up development, an effort it says will be coordinated jointly with American and European partners.

U.S. forces in the Middle East have leaned heavily on the Patriot system, which uses radar to detect and track an incoming threat, calculate its trajectory and then guide an interceptor towards a predicted collision point, using a hit-to-kill method.

Patriot systems have become integral to Ukraine’s defense against Russia and as Kyiv’s missiles run out, the country pleaded for more interceptors before joining with nine other nations to create Freyja, a Patriot alternative, amid a global shortage of anti-ballistic interceptors.

The U.S. currently relies on a layered missile defense network that includes the Patriot system, the Navy’s Aegis Combat System — armed with SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors — and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.

In April, Lockheed Martin announced that the Navy was preparing to bring PAC-3 MSE interceptors to sea for use by its Aegis system, which uses advanced radars to identify, track and then guide missiles. The company was awarded a multimillion dollar contract but did not specify a dollar amount or timeline in the announcement.

In the same month, the Pentagon also agreed to a $4.7 billion contract with Lockheed Martin to accelerate PAC-3 MSE interceptor production.

For the first time in decades, student pilots are flying solo across the country, the Army announced Thursday, as part of a curriculum change the schoolhouse hopes will create more skilled pilots.

The new aviators will prepare for the endeavor with two weeks of cross-country instruction before completing a check ride. Then, with naught but their fresh hands at the controls, the students will fly 50 to 100 nautical miles from Shell Army Heliport, navigating the national airspace without an instructor.

Second Lt. Kyler Suerth, one of the first flight school trainees in the new program, was anxious. “We are actually operating in civilian airspace the way aviators do,” the West Point graduate said before his flight in the release. “I am nervous, but every day I get a little less nerve wracked and a little more excited.”

Though he said that radio calls — and the challenge of shifting from military to civilian language — was his biggest hurdle, Suerth completed his solo flight this week.

The new model was introduced by the 1st Battalion, 223rd Aviation Regiment. Lt. Col. Andrew Bartlett, the unit’s commander, said the flight was a chance for students to combine the individual tasks they learned at the schoolhouse.

“We are asking them to think, to decide and to fly like real aviators,” said Bartlett, who supervised the program’s launch.

Flight school students will take at least two solo flights and up to five cross-country flights, depending on the weather, the Army said. Then, they move into tactical terrain flight training without the aid of GPS.

The solo flight is among the latest changes to the Army aviation pipeline as the service began an overhaul last year following a series of fatal accidents and concerns that new pilots were not developing essential flying skills.

Severe aviation accidents rose approximately 55% between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, according to Pentagon data released in 2025.

The Army also moved towards contractor-run training as it advanced at least two bidders for its rotary-wing program revamp in April.

The device, known as the i-STAT Alinity, is being fielded to forward units under the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, or AAMDC.

Air defense formations, the Army said, are often performing tasks that demand high mental acuity in environments far from modern medical equipment.

“In Central Command, we’re seeing disproportionately high traumatic brain injury rates in air defense,” Col. Jessica Peck, the command surgeon for the 10th AAMDC, said in a release. “These jobs demand extremely high cognitive performance. Even a mild traumatic brain injury can significantly degrade effectiveness, impacting coordination, emotional regulation, spatial awareness, and decision-making.”

The test works by analyzing a drop of blood for specific proteins that leak through the blood-brain barrier after a traumatic injury.

The protein scores can assist providers in determining if an injured person may need brain surgery or can return to work after a few days of rest. It can provide information to detect injuries up to 24 hours after the trauma.

Previously, military providers tested potential brain injury victims with memory and concentration assessments, a test Peck said could be easily manipulated.

“People can intentionally perform better or worse depending on what they want the outcome to be,” Peck said in the release, adding “a lot of special operations personnel have memorized the word lists, so they can essentially ‘beat’ the test.”

The new test may also reduce medical evacuations, the Army said, as previously patients with potential brain injuries had to be evacuated from austere environments to for testing.

According to the service, 68% of people evacuated from frontline roles for potential brain injuries were returned to duty during the decade-long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the blood test, some evacuations could be prevented, the Army said.

So far, the system has been used in the Middle East and prevented 13 medical evacuations across Central Command from 2021 to 2022, according to the release.

Because the testing cartridges must be refrigerated, the test will be kept at Role 1 care sites.