As part of the government-wide budget passed in 2013, the veterans benefits that governed the year-to-year adjustment for cost-of-living, or COLA, was to decrease 1 percent annually. After intense backlash from the veterans' affairs community, several Senators voiced their opinions against the provision on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, USA Today reports.
"I believe that the COLA reduction is wrong," Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said, "because it targets a single group – military retirees – to help address the budget problems of the federal government as a whole."
While a 1 percent annual reduction of pension funds may not seem like a large amount at first glance, the Marine Corps Times provides a breakdown of the long-term impact of the cuts. An E-7 retiree with over two decades of service stands to lose upwards of $100,000 by age 62, while the numbers only climb for officers.
"You don't join the military to get rich," retired Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy told the Marine Corps Times. "We're still fighting a war, and now we are talking about reducing the COLA? I don't get it."
At home or abroad, at peace or in battle, a dog is a man's best friend.
Nobody knows that better now than Sgt. Eric Goldenthal and Corky, the bomb-sniffing dog embedded into his unit. The pair swept through eastern Afghanistan, clearing out hidden explosives to open the path for a squad of Green Berets. Goldenthal, Corky and the rest of the unit continually fought off heavy resistance, Stars and Stripes writes, until Jan. 19 when Goldenthal and Corky were caught between three directions of fire in an ambush.
"And that's when me and him got hit, pretty much the exact same time," Goldenthal recalled. "I just felt it hit the back of my leg and then I heard him crying."
The injuries did not prove life threatening, allowing for a reunion between Goldenthal and Corky at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
The critical role dogs serve in the military extends beyond combat situations, however. Emerging studies continually show how dogs trained as mobility assistance animals can help soldiers ease back into life after military service, the Smithsonian has found. As some veterans experience trouble finding an emotional balance during peacetime, dogs have been shown to markedly improve the quality of life of those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
It takes a special kind of person to join the military, but it takes a much different sort to volunteer for a mission to Mars.
For a few select soldiers, life after service won't be about transitioning back to civilian life but adjusting to the harsh terrain and low oxygen on the surface of the Red Planet. The Department of Defense spoke to two members of the military who have made it to the final round of candidates for Mars One, a one-way mission that hopes to colonize the planet for long-term human habitation.
Out of 200,000 applicants, Mars One selected 1,058 finalists. That number includes MC2 Brooks Slaughter and 1st Lt. Heidi Beemer. As finalists, they will begin a ten-year training period that includes lessons in self-sustaining farming, component repair for the modules they'll be living in and basic medical procedures, according to the Mars One website.
Still, many might see a one-way ticket to Mars as an odd choice for a soldier's life after military service. Not for Slaughter and Beemer, though, who couldn't be more thrilled with the opportunity.
"I believe that when it does happen," Beemer told the DoD's Science blog, "it's going to be the biggest thing that ever happens to us as humans."
Members of the Indiana Senate are currently pushing a measure that would extend education benefits to military veterans who are trying to transition to life after service.
A senate committee has approved an amendment that would allow veterans to use courses and equivalency exams they took in the military as credit toward their degrees at state colleges and universities, The Associated Press reported. The measure will also encourage veterans to pursue teaching careers, and mandate that higher education institutions provide financial aid to all veterans admitted.
Amendment author state Sen. Jim Banks stated that the proposed legislation will help veterans by letting them apply what they learned in the military to their educational and occupational goals.
Indiana is just one of many states that's determined to provide support for veterans pursuing college degrees – a population that continues to grow as more servicemembers return from war in large numbers. According to NPR, the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill has helped around 860,000 veterans in its first three years. Sarah Yaw, who works with veterans at Cayuga Community College in upstate New York, told the news source that the college saw a 400 percent increase in enrolled veterans between 2009 and 2012.
The intelligence agency, which has been in the news as of late, may soon have a new military man in charge.
Gen. Keith Alexander is scheduled to step down from his position atop the National Security Agency in mid-March, creating a void many expect Navy Vice Adm. Mike Rogers to fill. Seemingly always in the headlines after former-consultant Edward Snowden's disclosure of surveillance programs, the Military Times reported that Rogers is expected to continue many of his predecessor's programs but with greater transparency to the public.
As a sign of the Obama administration's preference for a new direction, the Columbus Dispatch reports that the President himself interviewed Rogers last week. If confirmed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rogers will be the latest uniformed serviceman to helm the NSA as part of a 62-year-long stretch of such appointments.
Rogers appears to have all the right credentials to lead the nation's highest intelligence agency in a time when public confidence in it is flagging. His official Naval biography lists degrees with distinction and honors from Auburn University, the National War College, the Naval War College as well as a Masters of Science in National Security strategy.
Currently, Rogers serves as head of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and the director of Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Pacific Command.
Since the Pentagon lifted its ban on women serving in combat last year, the military has been gradually adjusting to the new roles of female soldiers. While the military has witnessed many milestones recently, including the first three female soldiers to pass the Marine Corps combat training course, one challenge that remains is physical fitness.
Marine officials are still unsure whether female soldiers will be able to complete the pullup portion of the Physical Fitness Test, a new service-wide standard of fitness, according to Military Times. Currently, female Marines are not required to perform pullups when taking the test, but have the option to do either pullups or the traditional flexed-arm hang.
Officials have decided to delay any changes to the PFT to June 30, and any modifications made to the test won't be enacted until January 2015. A Marine spokesperson told the news source that female soldiers can continue to choose between pullups or the flexed-arm hang until then.
The delay "allows more time for studies to be done to determine exactly when the Marine Corps will make a decision on when and whether or not pull-ups will be instituted in the female PFT," Marine spokesperson Capt. Maureen Krebs said, as quoted by the news source.
Nearly 14,000 women serve on active-duty status in the Marine Corps, and comprise approximately 6.8 percent of the branch, according to data compiled by the Department of Defense.
Officials from the Pentagon addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, asking lawmakers to consider "grandfathering" the reductions that were recently made to the annual cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees under the age of 62.
Military Times reported that Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. James Winnefeld encouraged the committee to exempt current military retirees, as well as servicemembers who are about to leave the military, from the reductions.
"Because of the complex nature of military retirement benefits, we recommend that the Congress not make any additional changes in this area until the commission provides its report," Fox said during the hearing, as quoted by the news source.
In December 2013, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, which outlines defense spending for the year. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law shortly before the start of the new year.
A provision of the NDAA reduces the annual cost-of-living adjustments by 1 percent for military retirees under 62 years of age. By doing so, the Defense Department is expecting to save $6 billion over the next 10 years. However, the COLA reduction will not be enacted until 2015.
The news outlet noted that while Congress approved the bill, no member on the Senate committee stated their support of the COLA cuts during the recent hearing.
NPR reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development has conducted its annual survey of the nation's homeless population, including veterans.
Every January, HUD picks a night for its "point-in time" survey of the homeless population. According to reporter Quail Lawrence, who covers veterans, thousands of volunteers traveled throughout New York City on a frigid night this week, counting the number of those living without permanent shelter.
Lawrence said he went with the volunteers to Madison Square Park and Penn Station, and only met one veteran. The Department of Veterans Affairs uses the annual HUD report as a way to track veterans homelessness in the U.S.
"[The VA] has said that maybe 12 percent of the homeless population are veterans … Predominantly Vietnam [War veterans] are among the homeless population," Lawrence reported. "There is a figure of about 48,000 thousand post-9/11 veterans who were helped out by the VA in some way, according to last year's statistics. They were either helped out for being homeless or on the verge of homelessness."
The most recent homelessness report from HUD was released in the fall of 2013. The department found that on any single night in January 2013, there were more than 57,000 veterans living without permanent housing.
For the military, the Super Bowl is not just about football. Fighter jets from the Continental United States North American Aerospace Defense Command Region will be at next Sunday's game to protect the skies above the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
According to Pentagon officials, air defense practices are expected to begin in the greater East Rutherford area this week. The exercises, which are closely controlled and planned, will consist of a series of training flights in coordination with various other national and regional agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, Customs and Border Protection, Civil Air Patrol, the FBI and CONR's Eastern Air Defense Sector.
"There are a lot of interagency partners involved in the air defense of this year's Super Bowl," said CONR commander and Air Force Lt. Gen. William H. Etter. "With multiple agencies involved, coordination between all air-defense partners is crucial. This exercise allows all of the interagency partners to come together before the game to hone their air defense skills and ensure communications are working properly."
CONR fighters have responded to more than 5,000 possible air threats in the U.S. since 9/11. Etter stated that Super Bowl Sunday is just another day that CONR personnel are "making sure our skies are safe."
They say blood is thicker than water but in order to see how strong familial bonds can be, look no further than the Wilkerson twins.
Staff Sgts. Eric and Jason Wilkerson are currently stationed at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base. This marks the brothers' first tour of duty in the country, but they're far from inexperienced. As the Defense Video & Imagery System reports, this marks the fourth consecutive time that the Wilkerson twins have been deployed to combat zones together, making life after service seem much like business as usual on the home front.
"It doesn't bother us," Jason said of the twins' multiple deployments. "We've stayed together and learned many things together, so we like it."
From their first tour in 2004 to their current one in Afghanistan, the Wilkerson twins have served at Camp Cook in Iraq and twice in Kuwait. They are both trained as Heavy Equipment Operators, or 88Ms, driving gun trucks and convoys across battlegrounds.
The Wilkersons join a long list of military siblings that served, enlisted or retired together, especially in recent years. In 2013, the DOD highlighted a pair of sisters who also deployed to Bagram Air Base together.