Deporting the spouses of US citizens is a net bad.
“An active-duty U.S. Army sergeant who has served in the military for 27 years, including in Afghanistan, said he still does not “understand why” his wife was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week in Texas.
In an interview with CBS News Sunday, Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano, 51, said his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, was arrested by ICE on April 14 during an appointment at an immigration office in El Paso.
Rivera Ortega, who married Serrano in 2022, has been in the U.S. for over a decade, since 2016. She was granted a legal protection in 2019 that prohibits her deportation to her native El Salvador, U.S. immigration court documents show. But the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News that Rivera Ortega entered the U.S. illegally, and Serrano said his wife has been informed she could be deported to a third country, like Mexico, where she has no ties….
If his wife is sent to Mexico, Serrano said he would likely not be able to see her without jeopardizing his military career, given restrictions on service members traveling to Mexico.
“We don’t know nobody in Mexico,” he said. “Plus, as a military, we’re not allowed to go to Mexico.
“Serrano, who was born in Puerto Rico, said his wife’s detention has exacerbated his mental health challenges, noting he has been treated previously for a traumatic brain injury, PTSD and depression.”
“The new grenade, called the M111, becomes the Army’s choice for urban combat, when troops must clear indoor areas to take and hold territory…
It’s the first new grenade introduced for US forces since 1968
…The use of shock waves, or blast overpressure (BOP), kills or disables enemies with the force of the explosion, vaporizing the weapon’s plastic outer shell.
Troops outside an enclosed area can throw the new grenade into that area, and enemies cannot take cover behind interior walls, furniture or appliances that shrapnel may not be able pierce, the military said.”
The Marines expect to be fighting where they may be on islands cutoff from resupply and need a weapon easy to maintain. They also expect to be close to the enemy, so a larger mag size is more important than the distance the bullet fires. And thus, the Marines are not adapting the Army’s new rifle. The Marines also don’t want to deal with the growing pains of adopting a new rifle and ammunition.
The army is trying to replace the M4 with a higher powered rifle that can better punch through modern body armor and hit people at farther ranges. However, it is heavy, has more recoil, and holds 20 rather than 30 rounds.
“For Russian men, war now advertises itself like any other job.
Offers for front-line contracts appear on the messaging app Telegram alongside group chats and news alerts, promising signing bonuses of up to $50,000 — life-changing money in a country where average monthly wages remain below $1,000. The incentives go beyond cash, with pledges of debt relief and free childcare for soldiers’ families and guaranteed university places for their children. Criminal records, illness and even HIV are no longer automatic disqualifiers. For many men with little to lose, the front has become an employer of last resort.”
“A long sliver of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border that President Donald Trump is turning over to the Department of Defense would be controlled by the Army as part of a base, which could allow troops to detain any trespassers, including migrants, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.
The transfer of that border zone to military control — and making it part of an Army installation — is an attempt by the Trump administration to get around a federal law that prohibits U.S. troops from being used in domestic law enforcement on American soil.
But if the troops are providing security for land that is part of an Army base, they can perform that function. However, at least one presidential powers expert said the move is likely to be challenged in the courts.”
The military should be focused on fighting and winning wars, not enforcing immigration policy.
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Beijing’s publicly released military budget is inaccurate and does not adequately capture the colossal scope and scale of China’s ongoing military buildup and wide-ranging armed forces modernization.
After accounting for economic adjustments and estimating reasonable but uncounted expenditures, the buying power of China’s 2022 military budget balloons to an estimated $711 billion—triple Beijing’s claimed topline and nearly equal with the United States’ military budget that same year.
Equal defense spending between the United States and China plays to Beijing’s benefit. As a global power, the United States must balance competing priorities in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, which spreads Washington’s budget thinly across multiple theaters. Meanwhile, each yuan China invests in its military directly builds its regional combat power in Asia.
America’s spy community has confirmed that Beijing’s defense spending is on par with Washington’s, but questions remain. The intelligence community’s estimate of China’s $700 billion in annual military expenditures needs more transparency to better convey Beijing’s military budget breakdown and inform policy debates regarding US defense spending investments, gaps, and imbalances.”