If federal, state, and local officials want the Pentagon’s help for the upcoming hurricane season, they need to be snappy about major storm predictions, so DOD officials told lawmakers last week. According to Paul McHale, assistant homeland defense secretary, a week would be nice. However, he urged diligence in making predictions to avoid a rash of false alarms. McHale told reporters a day earlier that the Defense Department is “better prepared than at any point in our nation’s history to move [disaster response] assistance as rapidly as is humanly possible.”
Unit commanders are being told to separate service members who can’t shave their cheeks and chin for medical reasons for more than a year, according to new guidance from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.