If the military personnel panel of the House Armed Services Committee has its way with the 2008 defense authorization bill, Congress, once again, would bar the Pentagon from raising Tricare enrollment fees. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), panel chair, noted that the Pentagon’s own task force on the future of military health care and the Government Accountability Office will not have their reports ready until late this year. Without those “careful, comprehensive, unbiased” reviews, Snyder said the Defense Department’s “premature proposals” would unduly burden military retirees and “not really address systematic cost drivers within the system.”
The top Air Force commander on on the Japanese island of Okinawa has clamped down alcohol and issued a curfew for junior enlisted Airmen and Guardians at Kadena Air Base for the next month. The order came roughly two weeks after a U.S. Marine was arrested for allegedly robbing and…