Faced with an estimated shortage of 31,000 military child care spaces in military dependent care facilities, DOD officials are adding modular buildings, constructing new child care centers, and contracting with civilian centers. New facilities on military bases will soon provide for about 4,000 children of active duty and reserve service personnel. That still leaves about 27,000 kids on wait lists. Jan Witte, director of DOD’s Office of Children and Youth, says the focus is on bases with demanding deployment rates and those gaining troops redeploying from overseas bases. DOD’s current annual tab on military child care is $434 million, and DOD has spent $60 million in supplemental funding over the last three years, just to extend child care services for children with one or both parents deployed overseas.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.