Source: United States Navy
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Vessel Construction Manager (VCM) to oversee the acquisition of the new Medium Landing Ship (LSM). This strategy is designed to maximize commercial practices to accelerate delivery, improve cost discipline, and expand the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base, with a contract award anticipated for mid-2026.
Source: United States Airforce
Air Force and Space Force senior enlisted leaders appeared before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee to address quality of life’s importance in national defense.
Source: United States Army
BAUMHOLDER, Germany– For some, the path to service is a straight line, for Veterinary Readiness Activity, Rheinland Pfalz, veterinarian and officer in charge of the Baumholder Veterinary Treatment Facility it had its twists and turns.
Maj. Paulynne Bellen took an unconventional path to her commission, entering the U.S. Army at an age when many are well-established in their careers. Her journey involved leaving a corporate job to return to school at 34, driven by a lifelong goal of becoming a veterinarian.
Originally from the Philippines, Bellen developed an early interest in animal care, often rescuing and rehabilitating injured animals she found. At 20 years old, Bellen moved to the United States with her sister and began a career as a staffing coordinator in New Jersey. However, her ambition to work with animals persisted, so she volunteered at an animal shelter.
At 34, she made the decision to pursue her original dream. The choice meant starting over academically and financially, a risk she fully accepted.
“I gave everything, I had no safety net,” Bellen stated. “I pulled my 401K and quit my career. Giving up was not an option.”
Before applying to veterinary school, she gained international experience by volunteering with World Vets for two years in Nicaragua and Ecuador. Her commitment resulted in acceptances to ten veterinary schools. She ultimately attended The Ohio State University, earning both a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and a Master of Public Health.
The idea of joining the Army had always lingered in the back of her mind, partly inspired by her brother who had been passionate about enlisting but never got the chance. While it was not her primary plan, it remained a possibility. After earning her veterinary degree, she sought new experiences and applied for a non-appropriated fund veterinary position on a military installation.
The interview for the NAF job proved to be a pivotal moment. The interviewing military veterinarian pointed out that at 39, her time to commission as an Army veterinarian was limited. She was presented with a choice: take the civilian position or enlist.
She chose the latter, commissioning in 2018 after making the decision in 2017. Her recruiter, Sgt. 1st Class (ret.) Erica Rough, provided crucial support and they remain in contact.
“I call her on my good days and I call her on my bad days,” Bellen said. “Joining the military just felt right for the very first time and she made it happen.”
Since joining in 2019, Bellen’s assignments have included stops like First-Year Graduate Veterinary Education at Fort Bragg and being the officer in charge of the Naples Veterinary Treatment Facility at Naval Support Activity in Naples, Italy. She now serves as the OIC in Baumholder, Germany, and is slated to move to Korea to become the 106th Medical Detachment Veterinary Service Support Chief of Operations.
“It’s a full circle moment,” she noted. “I moved from Asia to the US and now I’m heading back to Asia to continue my service.”
Bellen describes her military service as a positive experience defined by its dynamic nature and sense of community.
“The Army is an experience for me,” she said. “I love the people, the travel and my job. It’s exciting and you never really know what’s next.”
She identifies the collaborative spirit as a key component of her satisfaction with Army life.
“The best part of the Army is that we all come together and support together,” she explained. “We laugh through the tough times and come out stronger.”
Reflecting on her journey, Bellen believes the service has helped her grow personally and professionally. “The Army pushes you to discover a potential you never knew you had,” she concluded.
Source: United States Navy
The combined armed forces of Australia, the Philippines, and the United States, demonstrated a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific while conducting a multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity (MCA) within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, Feb. 15-16, 2026.
Source: United States Navy
Source: United States Airforce
The U.S. Air Force rolled out its plan for the LGM-35A Sentinel program, which will deliver the nation’s next-generation, modernized, land-based nuclear deterrent to America’s warfighters.
Source: United States Airforce
A next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III for transport ensuring greater energy security for the United States.
Source: United States Army
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Soldiers assigned to the 512th Field Hospital trained to move wounded troops across Europe during a recent field training exercise, testing casualty evacuation procedures across extended distances during large-scale combat operations.
The 512th Field Hospital is subordinate to the 519th Hospital Center, 30th Medical Brigade, and executed the training to maintain hospital-level care while transporting patients over long distances.
SWORD 26, the U.S. Army’s multinational exercise series formerly known as DEFENDER-Europe, focuses on rapid deployment, interoperability with NATO allies, and sustaining forces across the European theater. Medical support plays a critical role in preserving combat power.
Medical teams rehearsed long-distance casualty movement, coordinated with host-nation support partners, and maintained care from the point of injury through evacuation.
Training occurred in two phases. The first tested core procedures and equipment. The second phase challenged medical teams to adapt treatment methods while working with limited supplies.
“The first phase is proof of concept, and the second phase is our innovation phase where we’re trying things we haven’t done before,” said Army Capt. Bethany Blankenship, executive officer and lead planner for the 512th Field Hospital. “They told us they want us to get creative with how we would treat patients’ long term with minimal supplies and resources.”
Soldiers convoyed from Rhine Ordnance Barracks to Sembach Kaserne and back, moving nine vehicles in the medical convoy and additional transport for personnel. In total, 208 Soldiers from the 512th Field Hospital and the 519th Hospital Center participated.
“We’re moving 100 percent of our equipment by ourselves,” Blankenship said. “The field hospital is doctrinally supposed to move 30 percent of its equipment. We’re moving all of it.”
Planners established a 32-bed field hospital expandable to 48 beds. Capabilities included two operating rooms, intensive care, intermediate care wards, and emergency medical treatment, along with pharmacy, laboratory, dental, and medical logistics support.
Future large-scale combat operations may involve extended evacuation timelines, increasing the importance of prolonged field care.
“If we’re simulating a war environment, we expect mostly trauma patients,” Blankenship said. “We’re expecting gunshot wounds, head injuries, amputations, and then a few lower-acuity injuries.”
Patients are triaged in the emergency medical treatment area before being moved to surgery, intensive care, or intermediate care. Stabilized patients can then be prepared for evacuation and onward transport.
Col. Crystal L. Belew, commander of the 519th Hospital Center, said exercises like this help identify risks before they affect real-world operations.
“This is the time to test those capabilities and identify the gaps and risks associated with them, not during the time of war,” Belew said. “We need to identify the challenges, the power sources we need, and the types of patients that are safe to move on this platform.”
Training also included coordination with host-nation support partners along potential evacuation routes.
“We need to identify the resources our host nations may be able to provide along a long evacuation route,” Belew said.
Planning revealed friction points, including changes to medical supply ordering procedures and generator licensing requirements that required additional training before movement.
“We should have started PMCS and planning much earlier than we did,” Blankenship said. “There are a lot more pre-exercise training requirements than people realize.”
Belew said the exercise reinforces the role of Army medical teams in sustaining troops during combat.
“We are here, we will care for them, and we will get them home,” she said.
Source: United States Army
WASHINGTON – Gen. Thomas Carden has been appointed vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, bringing nearly four decades of experience to the organization that oversees more than 435,000 Soldiers and Airmen.
For Carden, the title “vice” is familiar. He explained that, like his previous deputy roles, the position is fundamentally about amplifying the commander’s intent.
“The vice or the deputy doesn’t have his or her own vision for strategy,” said Carden. “They figure out what the chief wants to accomplish in time and space to enable the 54 states and territories to do what they do best, and that’s generate readiness, lethality and capability for the joint force.”
Carden’s journey began on a peanut farm in southern Georgia, spanning nearly four decades from his enlistment as a private to the assumption of his current duties. After receiving his commission, he rose steadily through the ranks of the Georgia National Guard. In 2015, he assumed command of the Georgia Army National Guard and later served as the state’s adjutant general from 2019 to 2024.
Carden credits his success to the teams he has served with and the leaders who mentored him.
“First of all, it’s emblematic of the Guard as a leadership factory,” Carden said. “It’s really not about me. It’s been about everybody that I’ve served with, for, and around for almost 40 years. If it had been up to me alone, I would have been lucky to make it through my first enlistment.”
Many of his philosophies on leadership stem from his experience in the Georgia National Guard, which he says cultivates a unique culture of mentorship in which leaders identify problems and make immediate “course corrections” for one another.
“We’ve had a culture throughout my career where our leaders … if they saw something that wasn’t to standard or that you could do a little bit better … they would pull you aside and help coach you a little bit. It was very much a culture of leadership, not liker-ship,” he said, adding a common military adage: “I’d rather hurt your feelings than go to your funeral.”
Regarding mentorship, Carden encourages junior leaders to proactively seek honest feedback and guidance from senior leaders.
When Carden was a new rifle platoon leader during a National Training Center rotation at Fort Irwin in the early 1990s, he noticed the commander of an adjacent company, Scott Carter, who carried himself in a way Carden wanted to emulate. Carden approached him, asked questions and took notes that proved invaluable during the rotation.
“The lesson I learned,” Carden said, “is just don’t wait for the organization to assign you a mentor. You go recruit your own mentor.” Even now, as a four-star general, he says, “If I had a hard problem right now, I’d pick up the phone and call Scott Carter.”
He also recommends that leaders seek roles that push them outside their comfort zones.
“If you want to reach your full potential in the Guard, you need an assignment that requires the issuance of and frequent wear of a helmet,” he said.
For him, that meant spending 18 of his 40 years with the 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, an organization that spends significantly more time in austere locations than in office spaces he refers to as “the land of climate control and ultraviolet light.”
Those demanding “helmet jobs” often meant stepping outside his comfort zone. He had just 15 days’ notice before moving to Bucharest, Romania, for his first flag officer role outside Georgia in 2017.
“I mailed seven cardboard boxes and took five suitcases,” Carden recalled.
His most recently completed assignment at U.S. Northern Command was similar, arriving where he “didn’t know a soul” after a career spent mostly with familiar faces.
“You’ve gotta go out there every day and earn it,” he said.
Carden acknowledges that those assignments came at a cost and encourages service members to seek balance between work and family life whenever possible. He reflects on how his wife largely raised their two children while he was often away.
“Like every other parent with kids out of the house,” he said, “I wish I had been able to spend more time with them when they were little.”
His life and career experiences now drive Carden’s mission to help oversee the National Guard’s strategy. He is part of an organization that provides 20% of the nation’s joint force on just 4% of the Department of Defense’s budget, with priorities including the warfight, homeland defense and partnerships, according to its May 2025 posture statement.
Carden believes the best way to achieve those objectives is by requiring Soldiers and Airmen to master the fundamentals of their jobs.
“Soldiers and Airmen have to be fully qualified at the position they are in, and they’ve got to be deployable,” said Carden.
For domestic missions, Carden draws on his experience commanding the Georgia National Guard during hurricane response, civil disturbance security, and the global pandemic, which forced the organization to adapt to the challenges posed by COVID-19.
“What we had to do was take the capability we had and bend it around the problem,” said Carden.
At the time, the Georgia Guard’s largest medical company was deployed to Iraq, so leaders generated new formations from scratch.
“We had to start building these medical teams that didn’t exist,” said Carden.
That innovation led to the development of infection control teams across Georgia to sanitize facilities and create safer environments for citizens statewide. The new capability was documented and shared with other military and civilian organizations, which adopted the concepts.
Carden credits those teams with saving many lives.
Now that his responsibility has grown to include 53 additional states and territories, he sees other National Guard organizations as “innovation incubators” prepared to provide similar solutions to unique challenges.
Carden’s experience also extends to the Guard’s third core mission: building global partnerships. As Georgia’s adjutant general, he oversaw a busy State Partnership Program, fostering relationships with Georgia and Argentina. In his new role, he could potentially lend his expertise to the execution of more than 1,000 events with 155 state partners worldwide.
As Carden begins his tenure as the 12th vice chief, he is focused on ensuring the Guard is “brilliant at the basics.” But for a leader whose journey is defined by adaptation and mentorship, the ultimate lesson is one of continual growth.
“Senior leaders have got to be senior learners,” he said. “If you ever quit learning, you’re going to quit growing and you won’t be able to contribute.”
Source: United States Army
WASHINGTON – Soldiers from the Indiana National Guard assigned to the D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission rushed to aid a pedestrian struck by a vehicle at the corner of 16th and V streets NW the evening of Feb. 2.
Indiana Guard members patrolling nearby witnessed the incident and immediately responded. Spc. William Morris, who is nearing completion of his nursing degree, treated the pedestrian using his military training and civilian education.
Staff Sgt. Nicholas Adams said he saw a man running erratically and shouting before stepping into the intersection without checking for oncoming traffic.
Moments later, a vehicle struck the man, Adams said.
“We heard a loud impact — a sharp crack,” said Spc. Brenton Myers. “We immediately ran toward the scene.”
The impact was audible from half a block away, Adams said.
The Soldiers’ training kicked in instantly. As they sprinted toward the injured man, Myers dialed 911 and was on the phone with dispatch before they reached him. Once at his side, their movements were quick and coordinated.
“Bowlin and another Soldier began directing traffic,” Adams recalled. At the same time, “Morris checked the victim’s condition without moving him.”
Morris assessed the man’s airway, breathing and pulse.
“He was breathing and conscious but disoriented,” Morris said. When asked his name, the man gave multiple different answers and did not seem aware of where he was.
The driver stopped immediately and cooperated with the Soldiers’ instructions to move the vehicle safely to the side of the road.
Within minutes, additional support from their unit arrived and helped redirect traffic until fire and emergency medical personnel were on scene.
The injured man repeatedly tried to stand and run, falling several times. For his own safety, emergency medical personnel sedated him.
The unit’s medic, Spc. Jesus Herrera assisted the EMS crew by applying a cervical collar and checking the man’s pupils.
For the Soldiers, the response was instinctual.
“My first thought was, ‘This is real — I need to act,’” Morris said. “We were already moving before he hit the ground and training kicked in immediately.”
“None of us hesitated,” Adams said. “Securing the scene, calling 911, directing traffic. It all happened within about 30 seconds.”
“From my perspective, this was textbook scene management,” said 2nd Lt. Craig Schiesser, who also works in law enforcement as a civilian. “Clear communication, decisive leadership, and teamwork.”
The Feb. 2 collision reflects the type of incident the D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission was established to address. The mission serves as a bridge between federal priorities and local action to curb hazards and help restore order.
For the Guard members and first responders involved, the incident reinforced their goal of making the District safer. It underscores the Guard’s dual mission — defending the nation while sharpening crisis-response skills to better serve the communities in which they live, work, and serve.