About 48 Marines will work with Finnish forces to support Baltic Sentry, a coalition effort launched in Jan. 2025 to protect undersea infrastructure in the region after NATO leadership reported that saboteurs had damaged energy and communication cables.

The department said troops participating in the rotation will use small unmanned aerial systems and littoral sensors to gather data on the security situation for NATO. The Marines, assigned to the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will provide reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, the release said.

“Working side by side with our Finnish allies strengthens our collective readiness, ensuring we can operate seamlessly as a cohesive, lethal team to deter hybrid threats in the Baltic littoral,” Maj. Gen. Daniel Shipley, of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Europe and Africa commander, said in the release. He did not include specific details about the threats.

The release characterized the military efforts of Baltic Sentry as “defensive vigilance activity” to protect “Europe’s critical maritime choke points.”

James Lyon, 80, admitted to submitting fraudulent documents to the VA to help him pocket over $124,000 in disability payments, lying about his military service and claiming he earned combat accolades — including the Silver Star and the Bronze Star — during the Vietnam War.

Lyon never served in combat and confessed to refusing Marine Corps training roughly 60 years ago. Still, he claimed to serve over three different periods and lied about being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, federal prosecutors said. He used that diagnosis to submit fake paperwork for VA disability payments.

Lyon has not yet been sentenced. He faces up to 10 years in prison without parole, the maximum sentence specified by Congress.

“Veterans’ benefits represent a sacred national promise that is rooted in our gratitude to the men and women who have sacrificed and served our country,” R. Matthew Price, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said in the statement.

“When individuals fraudulently obtain these benefits for their own personal gain, they undermine the integrity of these vital programs and divert resources from the veterans who earned them and need them most. That is unacceptable,” he said.

The case was investigated by the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney James Kirkpatrick.

Gone are the days when America fought from sprawling command posts with overwhelming air superiority. Now faced with adversaries toting long-range fires and drones, the U.S. military is relearning a basic principle: how to hide.

As services adopt new strategies, the Army’s Combined Arms Command, or CAC, an outfit responsible for overseeing the service’s leadership and doctrine development, is changing how it teaches troops about concealment.

“Hiding in plain sight has become an imperative on the modern battlefield,” Lt. Gen. James P. Isenhower, the commanding general of CAC, told reporters during a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.

“We think very differently about how we employ ourselves [and] how we remain dispersed” compared to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he explained, pointing, in particular, to the size of command posts. “We have to work really hard to look like that which we are not.”

Isenhower’s remarks come as details begin to emerge about the true scale of destruction wrought by an Iranian strike on a major forward base in the Middle East.

On Feb. 28, the Islamic Republic struck Naval Support Activity, or NSA, Bahrain with missiles and one-way attack drones following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Initially, the Pentagon reported no major impacts to military operations. However, the Wall Street Journal later reported that damages amounted to approximately $400 million.

In one of the most stark official disclosures about the war thus far, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told an Epoch Times reporter that Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain.”

Far from isolated, America’s sprawling — and easy-to-find — Middle East footprint has been repeatedly subjected to assault since the start of the Iran war. In July, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack penetrated air defenses around Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Six U.S. soldiers were killed in March when an Iranian drone struck a tactical operations center at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan saw bases attacked with mortars and rockets, U.S. forces did not have to contend with precise, long-range missile and drone assaults.

“For 20 years we didn’t have to worry about anything coming out of the sky, and we lost proficiency that I think we had trained in the Cold War era — through the 80s and 90s — where we were worried about adversaries who had fixed-wing aircraft and the capability to send long-range precision fires at us,” Isenhower said during the briefing. “That wasn’t the case in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Over the course of the Global War on Terror, air dominance allowed American bases to be havens, according to Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, where the U.S. could concentrate supplies, personnel and command centers without facing constant surveillance and threats from above.

“These bases were sanctuaries,” she told Military Times, calling the installations “an aberration, historically.”

The U.S. is now returning to a “period of warfare where the base itself is a vulnerability and something an adversary can attack,” she said, which can lead to the scattering of resources.

Exacerbating that susceptibility has been the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptor munitions to combat Iranian ballistic missiles and cheap, one-way attack drones, actions that have significantly depleted interceptor stocks.

A recent CSIS report estimated that between February and July, the U.S. had expended approximately 65% of its Patriot interceptor inventory. The number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors, meanwhile, decreased by 38% since the start of the war, according to the report.

Grieco said that dispersing troops to account for these new vulnerabilities comes at a cost. Instead of funneling fuel, ammunition, food and other supplies through large hubs, the military must spread across more locations, potentially further apart.

“We’re now trading efficiency for survivability,” she said.

After the damage to NSA Bahrain, U.S. ships were forced to rely on a logistics hub at Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that sits more than 2,000 miles away from the service’s carrier strike groups in the Middle East.

The distance required personnel to place food orders 30 days in advance, which proved challenging due to the unpredictability of frenzied military operations.

Isenhower noted that as a division commander, meanwhile, he watched command posts shrink smaller and smaller during training because opposing forces — soldiers meant to act as the enemy during exercises — kept finding and precisely attacking them by using electronic signatures.

Units responded by dispersing and employing deceptive tactics to make it harder for the enemy to determine what they were seeing.

“We’ve got to create the benefits of mass without presenting the vulnerabilities of concentration,” he said. “It affects the squad differently than it affects a battalion, but we’ve seen in current combat operations: the vulnerabilities of a large, distinct signature, whether it’s physical, visual or something on the electromagnetic spectrum.

“It fundamentally changes how we operate.”

That vulnerability extends from command posts to moving equipment and aircraft.

In April, Iran downed a U.S. fighter jet after deploying a swarm of drones that were able to identify the aircraft’s GPS location, speed and direction, then feed that data to Iranian commanders, The New York Times reported.

Education about electromagnetic and drone warfare has been incorporated into all levels of the Army, Isenhower said.

Soldiers are learning to use electromagnetic data “to try to get a bearing or pinpoint a fix on the enemy,” he said, while learning “how to operate in that environment so they don’t do the same to us.”

The policy incorporates directives issued throughout 2025 into a set of standards for the services. Among them: commanders must allow time for physical fitness every duty day and troops in jobs designated as “combat arms” must be held to male fitness standards on regular fitness tests.

Many changes are already underway across the services. In March 2025, Hegseth ordered the services to identify their combat-arms specialties and develop sex-neutral, mission-related physical standards.

Hegseth has railed against “fat troops,” and “fat generals,” and pledged to return combat arms jobs to “the highest male standard only.”

The changes have unfolded alongside a Pentagon review of women in front-line jobs. In December, the Pentagon’s personnel chief, Anthony Tata, announced a study on the effectiveness of integrating ground combat units, prompting concerns among some that it could be used to justify restricting women from combat roles.

Critics have questioned the study’s independence after it was transferred from the Institute for Defense Analyses to Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory and placed under a researcher involved in a controversial 2015 study Hegseth has cited to argue against women serving in combat jobs.

The new document replaces the Pentagon’s 2022 fitness policy.

Here is what to know:

Fitness tests

Active duty troops are slated to take two fitness tests per year, and National Guard and Reserve members will take one. Under the Pentagon’s new policy, active-duty service members will take their service’s regular fitness test and a second assessment aimed at measuring their combat readiness. Those in designated combat arms jobs will be required to take a Combat Field Test, or CFT, while troops outside of those specialties will take a Combat Readiness Test, or CRT. The services can decide to use a regular fitness test in place of a CRT.

The regulations identify more than 80 occupations as combat arms across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, including infantry, armor, artillery, some engineering jobs and special forces roles. No Space Force jobs are listed.

Combat arms troops will be held to male-based standards on their regular service tests and required to score an average of 70% across events. Those in non-combat roles will have sex and age-based scoring.

Each service is responsible for developing its own CFTs that adhere to Pentagon standards.

Body composition

Active-duty troops will have body composition testing twice annually; those in the National Guard and Reserve will have testing once per year. All service members must meet a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.55, which is calculated by dividing a person’s waist circumference by their height. Troops who exceed that standard will be subject to a service-specific body fat assessment. If they fail that assessment, service members will be enrolled in a remedial program to meet benchmarks.

Branches may also set stricter requirements.

The body composition policy also gives a minimum 12-month exemption from fitness and body composition testing after childbirth, miscarriage or stillbirth. Postpartum troops may be granted additional time exemptions based on healthcare provider input.

Accountability and Tracking

The policy makes commanders responsible for giving troops time to stay fit. Leadership “will allow such members to perform physical fitness training every duty day,” the regulation reads, except when mission requirements dictate otherwise.

Starting on June 1, 2027, each service must submit a report on its fitness and body composition programs to the Pentagon with data that enables officials to analyze results based on sex, age, race, ethnicity, rank and military specialty. The services are also required to keep electronic records of troops’ test results throughout their careers.

Additionally, the services must provide the Pentagon with the information about the scientific basis used to create their fitness and body composition standards.

The body of Yu Wei Huo, 33, was found near the river’s shore, according to the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office, which said that an autopsy is pending to determine the cause of death.

HM3 Huo, from Flushing, New York, worked as a dental assistant and was stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Paris Island, the Corps confirmed.

“Out of respect for the sailor’s family and loved ones, no additional details will be released at this time,” the service said in a statement. “The Marine Corps extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and fellow service members affected by this loss.”

Last Friday, local officials asked for the public’s help finding Huo, saying that “there is concern for his safety and well-being.”

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the sailor’s death.

The additional Marines will be spread across 64 initiatives, including reinforcing the Pacific fleet, creating a drone school and establishing new occupational specialties, the service announced Tuesday in a statement. The Corps is aiming for a 4% end-strength increase by 2031 and an additional 1% increase by 2032.

The announcement shows the Corps is looking to simultaneously bolster infantry units and digital tactics.

“By aligning trained Marines with modernized capabilities, the Marine Corps ensures prior and future investments in robotics, precision fires, counter-UAS, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems produce warfighting advantages,” the statement said.

The new slots come after the Corps has spent years experimenting, modernizing and honing its ability to fight in island-studded regions like the Pacific. Last week, the service released Ground Combat Element 2040, a strategy outlining how its ground forces will change over the next 15 years. The service also plans to increase crew-served weapons personnel, add more 60mm and 81mm mortars and create a supplementary heavy machine gun platoon.

According to the Tuesday statement, the initiatives and additions will give the Marine Corps four wartime advantages: stronger power projection, especially in the Pacific; integrated autonomous and robotic systems; expanded training pipelines; and more specialized Marines in the force.

A significant part of the growth will enlarge the Corps’ infantry formations, adding personnel to 19 infantry battalions and two littoral combat teams staffed with Marines to create heavy guns platoons and expand precision fires, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

The Marine Corps is also building out the manpower and organizations needed for a drone-filled battlefield. Each Marine expeditionary force will gain a robotics and autonomous systems company and the service will establish its second Small Unmanned Aircraft System Schoolhouse at School of Infantry-West to train more Marines in the Corps’ small unmanned aircraft system specialty. In another initiative, installations are slated to get their own counter-drone personnel and capabilities to protect from non-friendly UAS.

Other changes create new occupational specialties. The Marine Corps is establishing the 0315 Scout specialty, which will fill a 26-person scout platoon armed with advanced sensors and optics. In a separate release, Lt. Gen. Jay M. Bargeron, Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies, and Operations, called the job’s creation “a critical step in the modernization of our infantry battalions.”

It also creates a career path for digital operations — making the 0673 identifier a primary military occupational specialty.

The service members, assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, were at the then-Hamid Karzai International Airport as America’s decades-long war in Afghanistan drew to a tumultuous close. Outside of the gate, where enormous crowds had frantically gathered in hopes of a safe evacuation from the country, an Islamic State bomber detonated the explosives on his body.

During a Wednesday ceremony at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presented the Bronze Star Medal with Valor to retired Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Eby and retired Lance Cpl. Jordan Houston, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Valor to retired Cpl. Michael Gretzon.

Eby secured the area before helping to evacuate wounded Marines, Houston — who was injured himself — assisted others to safety despite gunfire and tear gas and Gretzon helped control the crowd from a vulnerable position after the blast, according to the department.

Hegseth used biblical language when describing the service members’ actions. “These three Marines embody a timeless truth written in the book of Proverbs: ‘The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.’ On that chaotic day, you men were as bold as lions,” he said, adding, “When the wicked sought to sow terror, these men stood as lions at the gate — bold in their purpose, fierce in their resolve and unbreakable in their courage.”

The bombing has been a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s criticism of former President Biden’s handling of the withdrawal. Under the Trump administration, the Pentagon established a review panel to investigate the bombing, chaired by Sean Parnell, the department’s chief spokesperson. In a statement on X, Parnell said that the panel had discovered “highly relevant classified documents — material that should have been disclosed — stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found.”

He did not elaborate on the content of those documents or provide a date for their release.

A Central Command review into the attack, released in 2024, found that the attack was not preventable, contradicting claims from service members who said they had seen the possible bomber but could not get approval to take action. The review found that the attacker did not fit the service members’ descriptions of a “bald man in black.”

The new list replaces more than 200 affiliation codes that were previously available to service members, grouping many individual identities into expansive categories. The move comes amid sweeping changes to the military’s religious programs and chaplaincy under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Marines have until Sep. 30 to update their personnel records to reflect the slimmed-down options, the service said in an administrative message.

When the Pentagon announced the overarching changes earlier this year, Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said the shift was designed to help chaplains understand the composition of their units, not delegitimize religious beliefs.

The Marine Corps’ administrative message addressed the intention Parnell described, but said: “as a result of this change, some previously authorized faith and belief designations are no longer individually represented and have been consolidated into broader religious affiliation categories.”

Marines are instructed to choose “the most appropriate” identity when making their selection.

This is not the only recent change to the military’s approach to faith and chaplaincy under the current administration. In March, Hegseth announced that chaplains would no longer wear rank on their uniforms, instead displaying symbols of faith. Last December, he railed against “new age notions” in the Army Spiritual Fitness Guide and said in a video posted on social media that he signed a directive to scrap it.

Soldiers with the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division trained alongside Marines to outfit Neros Archer Strike first-person-view, or FPV, drones with C4 explosives to attack targets at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in South Korea.

It was the division’s first time using live ordnance with the system.

The training represents part of the military’s broader push to place attack drones directly in the hands of smaller units, giving them the ability to strike targets without relying on assets at higher echelons. Both the Marine Corps and the Army have created specialized units and groups dedicated to the small sky-fliers that have changed the course of modern warfare.

“At my level, the modernization with drones is allowing for on-the-ground troops to, rather than call in company-level or battalion-level assets, within their platoon or squad-sized element, be able to support long-range fires up to 20 kilometers,” said Pfc. Gavin Zerrull, a military intelligence systems maintainer and integrator who participated in the training.

Zerrull is also an FPV coach and operator with Talon Technologies, the “innovation arm” of the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, according to the Army’s early August release. The effort assesses unmanned aircraft systems for one-way strike missions, intelligence collection, surveillance and cargo delivery.

The Neros Archer Strike drones are made for long-range missions. As seen in photos released by the Army, the drone is small enough to be carried in one hand, with spindly, spider-like legs and antennas.

According to Zerrull, the platform has already been used in the war between Russia and Ukraine, where drones dominate the battlefield.

“What makes this different from a typical drone training event is the fact that we’re working with live ordnance and using a platform that has actively been tested in real-world situations in Ukraine,” he said.

The event, scheduled for Oct. 26-30 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, will bring together military personnel, government employees, industry and academic partners and contractors supporting the government. Participants will choose one of two tracks: developing AI agents on the Defense Department’s GenAI.mil platform or advanced AI development using the service and school’s resources.

The hackathon’s intent, according to the message, is to “generate practical, digital solutions that solve registered requirements while accelerating the Marine Corps’ ability to integrate AI-enabled capabilities into operations.”

Participants will spend at least two full days hacking — at the unclassified level — before final presentations and judging on the fourth day.

Those interested must apply by Oct. 9. Chosen attendees will be notified by Oct. 16.

The military’s push toward AI and automation is being driven in part by the sheer volume of information expected on a future battlefield. During an exercise earlier this year, the Army found that a large-scale conflict could require troops to process as many as 1,500 targets a day, which is a workload far beyond what a headquarters staff could manage without automation.