U.S. Army Spc. Brandon Brown of the Florida Army National Guard and U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Fouts of the Arizona Army National Guard were named the 2026 Army National Guard Soldier of the Year and Noncommissioned Officer of the Year, respectively, after winning this month’s Army National Guard Best Warrior Competition. The event was held July 11-14 at Camp Blanding Joint Training Center in Florida.Brown and Fouts earned the honors after four days of competition against 12 other top soldiers and noncommissioned officers representing 14 states. The competitors completed more than 25 events testing marksmanship, land navigation, tactical decision making…

The District of Columbia National Guard has commissioned its first maritime security vessel this week, giving the unit a waterborne capability to support security at major events and overall homeland defense in the nation’s capital.The vessel is assigned to the 260th Special Purpose Brigade, which was created in response to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2025 to address a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C. The order called on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to establish a specialized unit within the D.C. National Guard dedicated to “ensuring public safety and order” and strengthening coordination between military forces and…

Roughly 230 troops who left the U.S. military rather than get the COVID-19 vaccine have reupped — fewer than 3% of the thousands eligible under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policies to encourage them to return.A Pentagon official said Thursday that the Defense Department has “welcomed back more than 230 warfighters,” and the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force continue to work with more than 600 service members who have expressed interest.The official did not provide a breakdown of the returnees by service.According to the Defense Department’s web site on COVID-19 reinstatement, more than 8,700 service members were involuntarily…

Autonomous vessel maker Saronic is set to build Port Alpha, a shipyard the company describes as the most advanced in the world, at the Port of Brownsville, Texas.The announcement builds on an eventful few weeks for the company’s Corsair drone boats.On July 12, three Corsairs struck Iran’s Bandar Abbas naval base in what U.S. Central Command called the first combat use of unmanned surface vessels by American forces. Weeks earlier, a Navy-operated Corsair helped rescue two soldiers after their Army AH-64 Apache went down near the Strait of Hormuz, a mission Central Command called another first of its kind by…

Sign up for the Quick Strike Newsletter The hottest fishing news, tips, and tactics Good lures aren’t cheap anymore. Serious anglers understand the value of high-end hooks, sturdy hardware, lasting finishes, and specific actions that discount lures often can’t match. I use quality lures and I’m sure many of you do, too. I’m also certain that, like me, you wince whenever you lose one, whether it’s a $15 jerkbait or a jighead from a pack of four that cost almost as much as the jerkbait itself.   Learning how to unsnag lures will save you cash and heartache. But let’s get…

This article was originally published by Garrison Vance at Natural News.  Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Tuesday that it had struck U.S. Navy facilities in Bahrain and warned that regional oil and gas exports could be blocked entirely in response to American attempts to control the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC accused Washington of acting like ‘pirates’ by restricting energy flows in the region. ‘Regional oil and gas exports are either for everyone or for no one,’ the IRGC said in a statement [1]. The warning came as part of what the IRGC described as the fifth…

The U.S. Navy’s expensive effort to install hypersonic missiles on three Zumwalt-class destroyers is two years behind schedule, according to government auditors. In addition to problems stemming from both the destroyers and the missiles, the Navy and Army are reportedly not coordinating work on the joint Conventional Prompt Strike missile program. Missile flight testing scheduled for 2025 has been pushed back to 2027. “Despite recent successes testing the CPS missile, the Navy faces several programmatic challenges associated with developing, delivering, and deploying the CPS missile on the DDG-1000,” warned the Government Accountability Office report. “These challenges include rising costs, schedule…

As the U.S. Air Force moves to increasingly incorporate artificial intelligence into operations, the force needs to train human operators effectively to use the tools. But the technology might make a better fighter than the human at times, a former Air Force secretary said.At a Thursday roundtable discussion hosted by Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Frank Kendall, the 26th Secretary of the Air Force, claimed there are some instances when machines can outperform human operators, since the latter aren’t “perfect.”“When you get to the point where the AI is doing a better job of deciding who to kill than the…

Sign up for the On The Gun Newsletter The latest for gun hunters and competitive shooters. My typical grading system for products is “don’t buy it,” “it’s OK,” and “pretty damn good.” After testing hundreds of pieces of gear, I can say that the CZ 457 is a rare product that I love. I own a CZ 455 and two 457s; all three of them are great shooters right out of the box. If you feel like you need more out of the gun, you can dress it up with after-market accessories, barrels, stocks, and chassis. The CZ 457 does have…

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a… lone Army aviation student in the cockpit?For the first time in decades, student pilots are flying solo across the country, the Army announced Thursday, as part of a curriculum change the schoolhouse hopes will create more skilled pilots. The new aviators will prepare for the endeavor with two weeks of cross-country instruction before completing a check ride. Then, with naught but their fresh hands at the controls, the students will fly 50 to 100 nautical miles from Shell Army Heliport, navigating the national airspace without an instructor.Second Lt. Kyler Suerth, one of…

U.S. Navy leadership announced Thursday that the flight demonstration squadron involved in an abnormally low flyover at Pensacola Beach, Florida, will not face consequences.Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao absolved the Blue Angels of their unorthodox Wednesday flight maneuver, which rattled civilian chairs and umbrellas.“Flight debrief complete,” Cao said in an X post. “No reprimands. No firings. No problem.”The Navy initiated a safety review shortly after the incident, but it is unclear what effects Cao’s comments will have on that process, if any.Cao’s remarks came amid a flurry of support from the Trump administration for the Blue Angels after online videos…

Sign up for the Quick Strike Newsletter The hottest fishing news, tips, and tactics The Griz (Dick Grzywinski) is now well into his 80s and the legendary angler is still guiding clients several days a week. He walks down the boat ramp with a cane, and his once-dark, slicked-back hair has turned a wispy white. But he still hammers fish, and he and his wife still eat fresh-caught fish multiple times a week.  While Griz’s favorite fish to fry is pike, he of course loves to catch, fillet, and cook walleyes, too. This video captures the process the Griz has…

The United States ruling class has launched another series of overnight strikes in Iran, reportedly hitting civilian infrastructure, including several bridges across the Islamic Republic. Tehran had already threatened that further escalation would have consequences for the entire region when the US launched these attacks. “If the enemy, in the course of its war of attrition, seeks to strike Iran’s infrastructure or carry out further assassinations of officials, the entire region will pay the price,” a senior intelligence official in Tehran told RT on Thursday, as the US launched its latest strikes. Does that mean Iran will do anything major?…

The U.S. Navy announced that certain commands are no longer authorized to provide photos and biographies of leadership on public-facing websites.The decision was made to enhance security for sailors and their families, the service said.“Adversaries increasingly aggregate publicly available data to track, profile, and target our personnel,” a Navy administrative message read. “By creating an unnecessary spotlight and surge of online interest, routine command triad biographies inadvertently expose our people to elevated risk.”Commands led by vice admirals and officers with a lower rank, including civilian equivalents, are now prohibited from uploading the personal information on public websites.The official leadership biographies…

A year after massive civilian personnel layoffs swept through the federal government and across military services, the U.S. Space Force is still rattled from its loss of a third of its total personnel.About 14% of the service’s civilian workforce, roughly 780 employees, got cut last year in what Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, called “mindless.” The cuts have left senators questioning how the Space Force can rebuild the loss of personnel.“I worry that a lot of expertise walked out the door during that period,” King said during Thursday’s hearing to discuss the nomination of Lt. Gen.…

Sign up for the Quick Strike Newsletter The hottest fishing news, tips, and tactics This story, “Bull Bass Are My Hobby,” appeared in the July 1963 issue of Outdoor Life. Sometimes you can’t win. Conditions that July night were just about perfect. It was warm and still, with barely enough breeze to ruffle the surface of the water. A big moon, almost full, made casting as easy as by daylight. I was on Bull Shoals Lake, the huge, sprawling impoundment that straddles the Arkansas-Missouri border in the north-central Ozarks. Since 9 p.m. I’d been scratching bottom in 30 to 40…

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Every morning, Chelsea Thomas wakes up married, but alone. Her husband, an Air Force service member, has spent the past three years living more than 600 miles away because of military orders. While he relocated to his next assignment, Thomas remained in Florida with their children, preserving careers, school routines and the life they had built.It isn’t a deployment. For the Thomas family, it’s simply military life. For generations, military families were expected to pack up together every time orders arrived. Today, some families are making a different calculation. Rather than uprooting children’s schools, abandoning established careers, leaving specialized medical…

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Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.Two months before Pete Hegseth appeared in front of Congress to testify in his confirmation to be secretary of defense, he sat across from the podcaster Shawn Ryan, talking about the Pentagon’s 2015 decision to open ground combat roles to women.“It hasn’t made us more effective. It hasn’t made us more lethal,” Hegseth said. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”By the time of Hegseth’s appearance on the show in…

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Sign up for the Deer Camp Newsletter Get everything from whitetail news and opinion pieces, to advanced hunting tactics and cutting-edge gear reviews. We were not 300 yards from camp when my buddy Brad froze in his tracks. “There’s a buck right there,” he whispered as he grabbed for his binos and aimed them uphill. “It’s just a giant 2-point.”  But over Brad’s shoulder, less than 70 yards away, I could see another deer with its head down feeding.  As I nocked an arrow I replied, “What about that other buck?” At that moment the 2-point trotted downhill, joined the…

This article was originally published by William L. Anderson at The Mises Institute.  He spoke with a very thick Sicilian accent.“Ah, young fellow,” he said to Vito. “People tell me you’re rich. You and your two friends. But don’t you think you’ve treated me a little shabbily? After all, this is my neighborhood, and you should let me wet my beak.” — The Godfather, Don Fanucci tries to shake down Vito Corleone In the mid-1990s, Microsoft stood atop the high-tech world, and its founder and chairman, Bill Gates, had guru status among his fellow Americans. Microsoft had recently come out with its…

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