House defense bill boosts military pay, increases family separation allowance

The House Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2026 defense policy bill, passed Tuesday night after a full day of debate, includes a 3.8% pay bump for service members, a 60% increase in the family separation allowance and excludes the basic allowance for housing from income calculations.  The committee passed its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act less than a week after the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced its own version of the legislation. The House defense bill, just like the Senate’s version, focuses heavily on reforming the…

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Photos: A Military Parade in D.C.

Yesterday, the American public witnessed one of the most extravagant and unusual displays of patriotic pageantry in recent memory: an Army festival and military parade in the nation’s capital. Nearly 7,000 soldiers, 28 Abrams tanks, 50 helicopters, 34 horses, two mules, and a single dog marched through a cloudy and drizzling Washington, D.C. The event, a celebration of the Army’s 250th anniversary, also fell on President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday—and took place against a backdrop of fierce immigration crackdowns and nationwide protests against the administration. While millions demonstrated across the…

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Hegseth Is Right About DEI: US Military Faces Historic Recruiting Crisis Because of It

A focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has damaged the effectiveness of the U.S. military and hurt recruitment numbers. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday. One exchange in particular highlighted the wrongheaded thinking that infects some in the current U.S. leadership and how it addresses the military’s challenges. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the panel, said in hostile questioning of Hegseth that the military is “more diverse than it has ever been” and…

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The Crumbling Foundation of America’s Military

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. I. Supply and Demand Here, in the third decade of the 21st century, the most sought-after ammunition in the U.S. arsenal reaches the vital stage of its manufacture—the process tended by a young woman on a metal platform on the second story of an old factory in rural Iowa, leaning over a giant kettle where tan flakes of trinitrotoluene, better known as the explosive TNT, are stirred slowly into a brown slurry. She…

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Congress looks to require military drone corps, which Army leaders oppose

The House Armed Services Committee’s draft defense policy bill would require the Army to establish a separate drone branch, but Army leaders continue to push against the idea. A provision in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense bill would require the Army to establish a drone corps as a basic branch of the service. Gen. James Rainey, who leads the Army Futures Command, said it is too early for setting up a separate drone branch. One of the main priorities for the service right now is to…

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