Did the Army actually listen to soldiers' complaints about mandatory training?
Now, commanders can decide whether their soldiers need to meet these training requirements.
Cutting down the amount of online training that soldiers must take will allow them to focus on building 'warrior ethos' through 'tough, realistic training,' Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Mullinax said on Tuesday.
While some on social media have questioned why certain courses will no longer be mandatory, such as Combat Lifesaver training and law of war training for operational units, this is not the first, or even second attempt to lessen the amount of training that service members are required to take.
In 2017, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered a review 'to improve warfighting readiness' that included looking at 'requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks.' The following year, the Army announced it would let commanders reduce or eliminate training not directly related to combat.
It's worth noting that service members have long complained about being overburdened by cumbersome, confusing, and mind-numbingly dull computer-based training. In February, Austin von Letkemann, who runs the MandatoryFunDay social media accounts, jokingly begged Elon Musk to not let the Department of Government Efficiency cut any of the online training troops must take because it's 'totally not a waste of time and teaches us great skills that we use every day.'
Musk responded on X, writing, 'How much time is spent doing pointless 'online training'? Sounds pretty bad. Even I have to do some of this stuff.'
With that, here's your weekly rundown:
DOD IG looks into 'Signalgate.' The Defense Department Inspector General's Office announced on Thursday that it was looking into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's use of the Signal messaging app following news reports that Hegseth shared operational details of imminent strikes in Yemen with a chat group that included a reporter. Hegseth and other Trump administration officials have said that no classified information was shared in the chat. The inquiry, which comes at the request of the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will look into whether Hegseth and other defense officials followed Defense Department procedures for using a commercial messaging app to conduct official business.
Soldiers who died in Lithuania identified. All four soldiers who died when their M88A2 Hercules armored recovery vehicle sank in a Lithuanian bog on March 25 have been identified. They were all assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia. 'To the families, please know you are not alone in your grief, as they were immensely loved by this division; we stand with you united in honoring their memory,' Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, head of the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement.
Ukraine expects a new Russian offensive. Russia could be preparing to launch a major offensive in eastern Ukraine that could last between six to nine months. The expected offensive would come on the heels of Ukraine's recent withdrawal from Russia's Kursk region after seven months. Hegseth does not plan to attend an upcoming meeting of 57 countries to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine, marking the first time since the group was established that an American defense secretary will not be there.
Defense Department hiring freeze exemptions. The Pentagon announced that it will exempt 'mission-critical positions' from its hiring freeze to allow the Defense Department to keep hiring civilian employees for shipyards, arsenals, medical treatment facilities, and other positions 'that contribute to our warfighting readiness.' The Pentagon is trying to cut up to 8% off its civilian workforce, likely including thousands of veterans.
Remembering 'Iceman.' Actor Val Kilmer, who played 'Iceman' in both 'Top Gun' and 'Top Gun: Maverick,' died on Tuesday at the age of 65. One of his most famous roles was one the bank robbers in the 1995 movie 'Heat,' which featured a climactic shootout that Marines at the School of Infantry were shown during the Global War on Terrorism era to illustrate the concept of bounding overwatch.
Have you seen Pam, the missing python? And now, for something completely different: A soldier's three-foot pet python has gone missing in the Keltenwall Housing Area at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria-Hohenfels, Germany, said Kayla Overton, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria. The python's name is Pam, and the soldier did not have written approval to own the snake, Overton said. The U.S. Army W.T.F! moments Facebook page first posted on March 27 that Pam was missing. 'Pam has not been found,' Overton told Task & Purpose on Thursday. 'The soldier's unit is assisting with the search in the local housing area.'
Good luck to the soldiers looking for Pam! See you all next week.
Jeff Schogol
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31 minutes ago
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Ex-Trump national security adviser Michael Waltz defends Signal use in hearing for UN post
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Yahoo
33 minutes ago
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As Waltz faces UN post hearings, an update on the Signal situation that led to his initial ousting
As Mike Waltz, President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday for his confirmation hearing, focus returns to his ousting as national security adviser over what some referred to as 'Signalgate.' The former Florida Republican congressman served mere weeks in Trump's administration before revelations that he mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic to a private Signal chat that was used to discuss sensitive military plans, including planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Calls came quickly for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be removed from office, accompanied by criticism of the Trump administration for failing to take action against the top national security officials who discussed plans for the military strike in Signal. After weeks of scrutiny, Waltz left his security post but was swiftly nominated to the U.N. position. Months after the chat was disclosed, questions remain over the controversy, including if federal laws were violated, if classified information was exposed on the commercial messaging app and if anyone else will face consequences. Here's what we know and don't know: ___ KNOWN: Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak to the press and spoke on the condition of anonymity. One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, if they have access to a person's phone, can link their own device to the user's Signal — and monitor messages remotely. NOT KNOWN: How frequently the administration and the Defense Department use Signal for sensitive government communications, and whether those on the chat were using unauthorized personal devices to transmit or receive those messages. The department put out an instruction in 2023 restricting what information could be posted on unauthorized and unclassified systems. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not say whether she was accessing the information on her personal phone or government-issued phone, citing an ongoing investigation by the National Security Council. ___ KNOWN: The government has a requirement under the Presidential Records Act to archive all of those planning discussions. NOT KNOWN: Whether anyone in the group archived the messages as required by law to a government server. 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NOT KNOWN: If use of the line left any Defense-related materials more vulnerable than they would have been on a Pentagon secure line. ___ KNOWN: The chat group included 18 members, including Jeffrey Goldberg, top editor of The Atlantic. The group, called 'Houthi PC Small Group,' likely for Houthi 'principals committee' — was comprised of Trump's senior-most advisers on national security, including Gabbard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The National Security Council said the text chain 'appears to be authentic.' NOT KNOWN: How Goldberg got added. Waltz said he built the message chain and didn't know how Goldberg ended up on the chat. He called it a mistake. ___ KNOWN: Just hours before the attack on the Houthis in Yemen began, Hegseth shared details on the timing, targets, weapons and sequence of strikes that would take place. NOT KNOWN: Whether the information was classified. Gabbard, Ratcliffe and the White House have all said it was not classified, and Hegseth said the same in a post on social media. Democrats said that strains credulity. ___ KNOWN: Hegseth has adamantly denied that 'war plans' were texted on Signal, something current and former U.S. officials called 'semantics.' War plans carry a specific meaning. They often refer to the numbered and highly classified planning documents — sometimes thousands of pages long — that would inform U.S. decisions in case of a major conflict. But the information Hegseth did post — specific attack details selecting human and weapons storage targets — was a subset of those plans and was likely informed by the same classified intelligence. Posting those details to an unclassified app risked tipping off adversaries of the pending attack and could have put U.S. service members at risk, multiple U.S. officials said. Sharing that information on a commercial app like Signal in advance of a strike 'would be a violation of everything that we're about,' said former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who served under Democratic President Barack Obama. NOT KNOWN: If anyone outside the messaging group got access to the Signal texts. ___ KNOWN: Hegseth began cracking down on unauthorized leaks of information inside the Defense Department, and his chief of staff issued a memo on March 21 saying the Pentagon would use polygraph tests to determine the sources of recent leaks and prosecute them. NOT KNOWN: Whether Hegseth will take responsibility for the unauthorized release of national defense information regarding the attack plans on the Houthis. Trump in March bristled at a suggestion that Hegseth should step down, saying 'He's doing a great job. He had nothing to do with it.' ___ KNOWN: In April, Dan Caldwell, a senior Hegseth adviser who in the Signal chat had been designated as the secretary's point person, was placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the Pentagon by security. Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters told The AP that the former Marine's sudden downfall was tied to an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of department information. NOT KNOWN: If any others affiliated with the Signal situation will face reprisals. ___ KNOWN: Also in April, Hegseth was forced to defend himself against a second assertion that he shared classified material through an unapproved and unsecured network, this time taking airstrike information from a military communications channel and sharing it in a Signal chat with his wife, his brother and others. A person familiar with the chat confirmed to The AP that Hegseth pulled the information — such as launch times and bomb drop times of U.S. warplanes about to strike Houthi targets in Yemen — he posted in the chat from a secure communications channel used by U.S. Central Command. NOT KNOWN: If that's the extent of Hegseth's Signal usage. ___ KNOWN: The Pentagon's watchdog has begun looking into Hegseth's use of Signal, and also whether any of Hegseth's aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter. NOT KNOWN: What the inspector general will find, or what will be done as a result of those findings. ___ Kinnard can be reached at
CNN
an hour ago
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Senator to introduce a bill requiring Army helicopters to fly with key flight tracking technology turned on
The top US senator overseeing aviation says he will introduce a bill that 'will close the regulatory loophole' that allowed an Army Black Hawk helicopter to operate with key flight tracking technology, called ADS-B out, turned off the night it collided with an airliner near Washington, DC. Sen. Ted Cruz, ranking chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, made the announcement Tuesday at an aviation industry summit only miles from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport where the January 29 crash killed 67 people. Cruz has been sharply critical of Army practices since the crash, which he said was given too much leeway by the Federal Aviation Administration to operate with the flight tracking technology equipment, called ADS-B out turned off. The technology broadcasts the location of a moving aircraft to other planes nearby and can update much faster than traditional radar. Cruz said his Rotorcraft Operations Transparency and Oversight Reform bill, or ROTOR Act, will also 'review helicopter routes at airports across the country' and will require the Army inspector general to 'review systemic breakdowns that may have contributed to the crash.' Later this month, the National Transportation Safety Board will hold a three-day investigative hearing on the crash.
