Task & Purpose

On Wednesday, two classes worth of soldiers will graduate from the Army’s newest Military Occupational Specialties, or MOS, training course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. A mix of new recruits straight from bootcamp and veteran soldiers retraining will officially become the Army’s new 15X tactical unmanned aircraft system specialists. So far, the course has graduated more than 250 soldiers in almost a dozen training classes. “The recruiting folks have been gangbusters on this and s

The U.S. military and Iran traded strikes Sunday night, led by American strikes on\ an island in the Strait of Hormuz. The fighting is the first time the United States has struck Iranian targets since the end of July.  U.S. forces struck two Iranian rocket aunch sites on Larak Island on Sunday, in response to purported preparations to launch rockets carrying sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz. The small island is used by Iranian military forces and ships traveling through the strait on comme

Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division currently deployed to the Middle East will remain in the region into next year due to “operational requirements,” the Army announced. The extended deployment was announced by division commander Maj. Gen. Brandon R. Tegtmeier in a letter to military families, thanking them for their support of the deployed troops. Task & Purpose reviewed the letter, dated Aug. 30 and shared to social media including the Army’s unofficial subreddit. The Army confirmed

The Air Force’s Global Strike Command ordered airmen to stop using a communications test kit at one of its intercontinental ballistic missile bases after a review found potential residue of a carcinogenic chemical in it.  On Friday, Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the service’s ICMBs and nuclear bombers, said that it directed units to stop using AN/PRM-10 test oscillator set after polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs were potentially found in it. The 20th Air For

The acting Secretary of the Navy ordered the Marine Corps to help a military spouse get her and her family back to the United States, after she took to social media to express concern that she and her kids might be stuck in Germany as she and her husband divorce. The military spouse, identified by Task & Purpose’s sister publication We Are the Mighty as Jamie Lenio, said that she was worried she would be stuck in Germany if her divorce and custody proceedings happen while still in G

The Pentagon is set to withdraw nearly 200 U.S. troops from Nigeria, following their deployment to the central African country earlier this year. The New York Times first reported on the troop drawdown, citing U.S. officials. It’s the second time in two months that the U.S. has pulled some combat forces deployed to the country as part of a surge of American military power.  Since late winter, more than 100 American troops have been deployed to the country on a training and advisory mi

The U.S. military has cleared Iranian sea mines from the transit routes in the Strait of Hormuz, the head of U.S. Central Command said Friday. In a video address. Adm. Brad Cooper announced that a combination of forces, led by Navy divers and SEALs, has removed mines laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the spring. “The circumstances were challenging and dangerous, to say the least, but we got the job done,” Cooper said. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital but narrow water

U.S. forces boarded and then later sank an alleged “floating refueling station” on Friday, U.S. Southern Command said. The raid is the latest incident of direct U.S. military action in and around Ecuador in the last two weeks in coordination with the country’s government. The USS San Antonio tracked and interdicted the ship in international waters. Sailors and Marines from Littoral Combat Force-24 launched from the San Antonio and boarded the ship. They searched the vessel without incident, S

A new service academy will train Space Force officers, NASA personnel and others, President Donald Trump announced. On Friday, Trump signed an executive order to create the new service academy, similar to the Army and Navy’s, and shared the decision while speaking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center at an event honoring the members of the Artemis II mission. Trump, who created Space Force in his first term in 2019, said that the new Space Academy will “educate and train an entire gener

Marines can now wear their college or academy class rings with their uniforms, the service announced today. The new uniform regulation change is “effective immediately.” The single uniform adjustment, announced in a Marine administrative notice released Aug. 28, allows Marines to wear their college or commissioning-source class rings in conjunction with wedding rings.  According to the wider regulations under MCO 1020.34H, released in 2018, this means class rings can be worn with all

A sailor assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln who was rescued after jumping overboard may face nonjudicial punishment, a common disciplinary proceeding in the military for misconduct on or off duty, a source with knowledge of the matter told Task & Purpose. A nonjudicial punishment, or NJP, falls under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not a criminal conviction or court-martial, said Phillip Stackhouse, a civilian attorney who often represents service mem

Air Force special operations crews appear to be using a major exercise in Iceland to test and train with cargo gliders to resupply ground teams in tough-to-reach locations. At the Northern Viking 2026 exercise held this month near the northern city of Akureyri, an official with the 352d Special Operations Wing said the unit would be simulating the supply of ground troops with gliders dropped from the unit’s MC-130 cargo planes. “Basically, we’ll be employing non-standard airdrop platforms

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jonny Kim – perhaps the most qualified person on the planet should a future space shuttle ever require a door gunner – is leaving NASA after nearly a decade to return to active duty with naval aviation training, the space exploration program has announced. Along with his record as an astronaut with an eight-month tour in space under his belt, Kim began his military career as a Navy SEAL before attending Harvard Medical School to become a doctor and Navy flight surgeon. He also

The Navy is offering bonuses of up to $100,000 to keep some of its most experienced sailors in some of its toughest, most secretive jobs. The six-figure bonus is being offered to chief warrant officers in the service’s SEAL units and special boat teams with between four and 16 years of commissioned service, according to a recent Navy Administrative Message, or NAVADMIN. The bonus program is available to a fairly small slice of sailors within Naval Special Warfare who hold 7151 and 7171

A Marine injured by a suicide bomb outside Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport tended to other Marines and provided cover in the wake of the attack. Later that night, he sat in his room digging shrapnel out of his own hip. He had avoided medics and his own platoon sergeant at the scene of the explosion, afraid he’d be ordered to leave the scene if they saw the severity of his wound. On Wednesday, Lance Cpl. Jordan Houston was one of three Marines who received awards for their actions at Abbey Gat

The Marine Corps plans to push more air defenses “down to the squad level” as part of a major retooling of how its ground units and infantry troops are trained and equipped for future conflicts. On Wednesday, the Marines released Ground Combat Element 2040, a blueprint for transforming the land force component of the Marine Air Ground Task Force or MAGTF, the central formation that the Corps organizes around for a battle. A MAGTF moves and fights with its owns ground, aviation, and logistics

The Navy is planning to take dozens of Army pilots who were cut in a massive reduction of the land service’s aviation corps.  But of the hundreds of Army pilots that officials estimate might be looking for a spot, the Navy is likely to only have slots for, at most, about a quarter of them. A Navy spokesperson told Task & Purpose that the service is looking to take around 75 Army pilots who have completed initial flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. “This is not a new or sta

All sailors and Marines will soon have to take a new yearly gas “mask fit” test after the two services amended their gas mask rules to meet the Pentagon’s recent overhaul of grooming standards. The new annual Chemical, Biological Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) mask test requirements were recently published in official Marine Corps and Navy administrative notices, or ADMINs. The Marine Corps policy incorporates new pass-fail training compliance statuses while the Navy

Air Force 2nd Lt. Leah R. Borsich was one of eight people killed when a plane carrying her team crashed while trying to land in foggy conditions at a remote radar site in western Alaska, service officials announced. Borsich, 23, was a project programmer with the 611th Civil Engineer Squadron, an Air Force news release says. She was assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. Borsich graduated from the University of Dayton, Ohio, in 2025, where she was commissioned through the Air

American Special Forces are conducting joint operations with local troops against drug cartels, and more U.S. military assets are incoming, Ecuadorian officials said last week. The announcements come nearly six months after the U.S. and Ecuador carried out their first joint strike against a group inside the country, which officials labeled as drug traffickers. A local official said U.S. Green Berets have been operating in the Esmeraldas province, carrying out joint operations with Ecuadorian