Pentagon officials say each of the services now are beginning to institute assessments of the health—physical and mental—of each troop returning from deployment—within 90 to 120 days of their return. Officials say the new program is slated to start in January. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps began testing the program in June; the Air Force started its test in September.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.